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Early Opposition 
to the 
Steam. Railroad 





By 


THURMAN W. VAN METRE 


| Professor of Transportation 
SCHOOL OF BUSINESS 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 


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Foreword 


NE of the significant achievements of the twentieth century has 

been the improvement in the methods of highway transporta- 
tion brought about by the use of the motor vehicle. There are today 
some twenty million passenger cars and trucks registered in the 
United States. So completely has the motor vehicle entered into 
our daily life, so closely has it become associated with virtually every 
kind of human activity conducted for business or for pleasure, so 
numerous and extensive have become the business enterprises con- 
nected directly or indirectly with its manufacture, distribution, oper- 
ation and maintenance, that it is difficult to realize that twenty-five 
years ago the “horseless carriage” was still regarded as a mechanical 
experiment of doubtful promise. The generation now living has 
witnessed a revolution in the art of transportation as remarkable in 
its character as the revolution which followed the invention of the 
steam locomotive. 

Notwithstanding its recent origin the automobile industry now 
_ ranks first among the manufacturing industries of the United States. 

Originally designed as a private passenger conveyance, to be used 
chiefly for pleasure and recreation, the motor car has become a ve- 
hicle of the business world, widely used to carry both passengers 
and freight. 

As a carrier for hire the motor vehicle was for a time limited 
to passenger service over definite routes in a few of our larger cities 
and to the special and more or less irregular services once performed 
by horse-drawn cabs and drays. During the past few years its field 
of operation has been extended. There has been a greatly increased 
use of motor buses in cities, and in many parts of the country 
motor buses are affording a regularly scheduled suburban and inter- 
urban transportation service. The motor truck has found its place 
in distributional services and is now largely engaged in the carriage 
of commodities by privately owned vehicles over short distances. In 
other words the motor vehicle is providing on the highways a trans- 
portation service very similar to that long given exclusively by steam 
and electric railways. 

It was inevitable that the motor vehicle should absorb a part 
of the traffic of the railways. Private cars and trucks took some 


3 


business from the rail carriers, and the common carrier buses, 
offering in many instances a directly competitive service, have taken 
more. 

When the motor vehicle first came into general use the steam 
and electric railways had long been without rivals of any conse- 
quence. It was hardly to be expected that they would look with 
favor upon the advent of a sturdy and vigorous competitor. They 
did not relish the diversion of traffic to private motor facilities, but 
there was little or nothing they could do to check this loss. The 
carriers for hire, whether trucks or buses, were different. They 
were distinctly business rivals to which combat could be and was 
given. 

Representatives of railways urged the adoption of legislative 
and administrative policies which would check the expansion of ser- 
vice by motor vehicles for hire. Their vigorous attacks upon the 
rival transportation agency were based upon an obviously sincere 
belief that the new form of highway transportation was wasteful 
and unnecessary, though their disparaging statements did not al- 
ways show clear evidence of a serious and patient effort to find out 
if motor vehicle service could be justified upon grounds of economy 
and efficiency. 

The manufacturers and operators of motor vehicles for the most 
part refrained from acrimonious controversy. They were willing to 
let time settle the issue, confident that the public not only would tol- 
erate but would demand the use of the motor vehicle wherever it 
could render meritorious service. The events of the past few years 
have justified this attitude. 


A feature of the opposition to the motor vehicle which interested 
me was its similarity to the antagonism with which many other me- 
chanical innovations have been met in times past. I was familiar 
with the fact that the steam railroad, in its early days, had not been 
acclaimed with universal approval, and I requested Mr. Van Metre 
to prepare for me a brief account of the early opposition to steam 
railway development, 


Though this account was written more than four years ago, I 
hesitated to publish it because I feared the more vigorous opponents 
of motor vehicle transportation might infer that I questioned their 
motives. While I felt that the validity of some of their arguments 
might be denied, I did not doubt the sincerity of their convictions, 
and I had no desire to take part in a fruitless dispute. 


4 


Conditions have changed materially since this article was writ- 
ten. The prejudice against the motor vehicle as a carrier for hire 
has largely melted away, and many individuals who were once its 
most earnest enemies, convinced by the logic of events, are now 
among its staunchest friends. Steam railroad companies are pur- 
chasing fleets of motor trucks for their own use or are contracting 
with motor haulage companies to transport freight which experience 
has shown can be hauled in motor trucks more economically than in 
railroad freight cars. Street railway companies and steam railroads 
are finding the motor bus a means of improving and enlarging their 
service. The motor vehicle is finding its proper place in the trans- 
portation system, and the public is obtaining the advantages of its 
manifest economies. 

Under the circumstances I can give publicity to this article with 
no danger of being misunderstood. It is being published, not in a 
spirit of criticism, but with the thought of making possible a clearer 
understanding of some of the difficulties through which the motor 
vehicle industry has recently passed. wie 

A. J. BRossEAu. 





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Early Opposition to the Steam Railroad 


F all the mechanical improvements of the nineteenth century there 

was perhaps none which had a more pronounced effect upon 
economic progress than the steam railroad, certainly none which 
had a greater influence upon the economic progress of the United 
States. It has been said recently that the United States represents an 
“experiment in transportation.” The history of the country is primarily 
the record of the march of a vigorous people across a wide belt of 
the North American continent. This march could not have been ac- 
complished without the aid of the steam railroad. 


{ \ 
When one considers how great a factor the railroad has been \ 
in the development of the United States, one would hardly suppose | 


that this great instrument of progress was introduced in this country 
only with the greatest difficulty and came into general use in the face 


of the most bitter opposition. Yet such was the case. During its 


inception and during the early years of its history the steam railroad \ 


was regarded in many quarters as new devices are frequently re- 
garded—first as impossible, then as impracticable, and then as un- 
economical and undesirable. New ideas do not often receive a re- 
spectful hearing. Pioneers in discovery and invention are frequently 


regarded as misguided fools or harmless lunatics rather than as\ 


men of wisdom and foresight. The steam locomotive was conceived 
in the minds of several individuals nearly a half century before it 
was constructed, but these individuals, like those who gave the world 
the steamboat, the reaper, the electric telegraph, the sewing machine, 
the first Atlantic cable, the automobile and the airplane, were gen- 
erally regarded as dreamers and victims of delusions. The early 


partial successes with steam as motive power, both for land and for , 


water transportation, were looked upon more as demonstrations of 


futility than as promises of great things to come. 
When the steam locomotive became a success—established be- 
yond doubt—the problem of creating a steam railway transporta- 


tion service was by no means solved: The railroad was not a uni- 
versally popular institution. It was too new. There are always \ 


people who believe that anything new is inferior, merely because it 
is new. They have lived in the “good old days,” and they witness 
with reluctance any tendency to abandon the “good old ways.” In 
the early days of the railroad there were not wanting people who 


9 


preferred, as a matter of principle, the lumbering, uncomfortable 
stage-coach to the faster moving. steam passenger train. Not in- 
frequently such people found some justification, because in some 
parts of the country the stage-coach was a surer and more comfort- 
able means of travel than the early railroad train. The occasional 
failure of the crude mechanisms first used upon railroads to meet the 
demands placed upon them was sufficient ground for the assertion 
that steam railroad transportation was wholly “impracticable.” The 
railroad was. said to be inferior to the canal for the carriage of 
freight and. no.better than. the stage-coach for the carriage of pas- 
sengers.. It would never succeed, and the capital invested in rail- 
road enterprises was destined to be lost. Only those courageous 
souls who possessed the imagination and vision to anticipate im- 
provements, maintained an unshaken confidence in the new agency 
of trade and travel. 

é The chief opposition to the steam railroad came, however, from 
those who had a vested interest in transportation facilities which the 
railroad was destined to supplant. .For a generation the.owners of 
_canals and turnpikes opposed the construction of railroads. Other 
vested interests whose business was endangered by the progress 
of steam railway transportation placed every obstacle at their com- 
mand in the way of the development of an efficient railroad service. 


The Railroad Pioneers 


Probably the first American to become interested in the possi- 
bilities of steam as a motive power for land transportation was 
Oliver Evans, a Philadelphia mechanic, who was one of the first 
manufacturers of steam engines in the United States. He was an 
inventor of considerable renown, and he contributed many improve- 
ments to the steam engine. In 1812 Evans wrote an account of his 
experiments with “steam waggons.” This account, published in 
Niles’ Weekly Register (Vol. I1I, Addenda, 2-6), began as follows: 


About the year 1772, being then an apprentice to a wheel-wright, 
or waggon-maker, I labored to discover some means of propelling 
land carriages, without animal power. All the modes that have since 
been tried (as far as I have heard of them) such as wind, treadles 
with ratched wheels, crank tooth, etc., to be wrought by men, pre- 
sented themselves to my mind, but were considered too futile to 
deserve an experiment and I concluded that such motion was impos- 
sible for want of a suitable original power. 


10 


But one of my brothers, on a Christmas evening, informed me 
that he had that day been in company with a neighboring blacksmith’s 
boys; who, for amusement, had stopped up the touch hole of a gun 
barrel, then put in about a gill of water and rammed down a tight 
wad—after which they put the breech in a smith’s fire; when it 
discharged itself with a crack as if it had been loaded with powder. 


It immediately occurred to me that here was the power to pro- 
pell any waggon, if I could only apply it; and I sat myself to work 
to find out the means. I labored for some time without success. At 
length a book fell into my hands describing the old atmospheric 
steam engine; I was astonished to observe that they had so far erred 
as to use the steam only to form a vacuum to apply the mere pressure 
of the atmosphere, instead of applying the elastic power of the steam 
for original motion, the power of which I supposed irresistible. 


I renewed my studies with increased ardor and soon declared 
that I could make steam waggons, and endeavored to communicate 
my ideas to others; but however practicable the thing appeared to 
me, my object only excited the ridicule of those to whom it was made 
known. But I persevered in my belief, and confirmed it by experi- 
ments that satisfied me of its reality. 


In the year 1786 I petitioned the legislature of Pennsylvania 
for the exclusive right to use my improvements in flour mills, as also 
steam waggons, in that state. The committee to whom my petition 
was referred heard me very patiently while I described my mull im- 
provements, but my representations concerning the steam waggons 
made them think me insane. sy. 


A similar petition was also presented to the legislature of 
Maryland. Mr. Jesse Hollingsworth, from Baltimore, was one of 
the committee appointed to hear me and report on the case. I can- 
didly informed the committee of the fate of my application to the 
legislature of Pennsylvania respecting the steam waggons—declar- 
ing, at the same time, without the encouragement prayed for, | 
would never attempt to make them, but that, if they would secure 
to me the right as requested, I would, as soon as I could, apply the 
principles to practice ; and I explained to them the great elastic power 
of steam, as well as my mode of applying it to propel waggons, Mr. 
Hollingsworth very prudently observed, that the grant would injure 
no one, for he did not think that any man in the world had thought 
of such a thing before; he ee etice wished the encouragement 
might be afforded, as there was a prospect that it would produce 
something useful. That kind of argument had the desired effect, and 
a favorable report was made, May 21, 1787, granting to me, my heirs 
and assigns, for 14 years, the exclusive right to make and use any 
improvements in flour mills and the steam waggons, in that state. 
From that period I have felt myself bound in honor to the State of 
Maryland to produce a steam waggon, as soon as I could conve- 
niently do it. 


11 


Evans went on to say that he was unable to interest anybody 
with capital in his idea of a steam wagon, and he was therefore com- 
pelled to give up for several years all thought of executing his proj- 
ect. He continued, however, to think about the matter, and never 
gave up the conviction that he could construct a steam wagon. He 
also conceived the idea of building a steamboat propelled by paddle- 
wheels. 

Finally in 1801 he began the construction of a steam-wagon at 
his own expense. He communicated his ideas to some scientists of 
Philadelphia, one of whom, B. H. Latrobe, 


publicly pronounced them chimerical, and attempted to demonstrate 
the absurdity of my principles, in his report to the Philosophical 
Society of Pennsylvania on steam engines; in which same report he 
also made attempts to show the impossibility of making steamboats 
useful, on account of the weight of the engine; and I was one of 
the persons alluded to, as being seized with the steam mania, conceiv- 
ing that waggons and boats could be propelled by steam engines. 
The liberality of the members of the society caused them to reject 
that part of the report which he designed as a demonstration of the 
absurdity of my principles; saying they had no right to set up their 
epinions as a stumbling block in the road of any exertions to make 
a discovery. They said, I might produce something useful, and or- 
dered it to be stricken out. What a pity they did not also reject his 
demonstrations respecting steamboats! for notwithstanding them, 
they have run, are now running and will run; so has my engine 
and all its principles completely succeeded—and so will land car- 
riages as soon as these principles are applied to them, as explained 
to the legislature of Maryland in 1787, and to others long before. 


Though Evans made some progress in the construction of the 
steam wagon which he started in 1801, he was diverted from this 
enterprise because of greater promise of profit in building engines 
for flour mills and other manufacturing establishments. Though he 
never returned to his project of the steam wagon, he carried out an 
interesting experiment in 1804 which he regarded as-.a_successful 
demonstration of the feasibility of his plan. The experiment he 
described as follows :— j 


In the year 1804, I constructed at my works, situated a mile and 
a half from the water, by order of the board of health of the city of 
Philadelphia, a machine for cleansing docks. It consisted of a large 
flatt, or scow, with a steam engine of the power of five horses on 
board, to work machinery to raise the mud into flatts. This was a 
fine opportunity to show the public that my engine could propell 
both land and water carriages, and I put wheels under it, and though 


12 


it was equal in weight to two hundred barrels of flour, and the 
wheels fixed with wooden axletrees, for this temporary purpose, in 
a very rough manner, and with great friction, of course, yet with 
this small engine I transported my great burden to the ‘Schuylkill 
with ease, and, when it was launched in the water, I fixed a paddle 
wheel at the stern, and drove it down the Schuylkill to the Dela- 
ware and up the Delaware to the city, leaving all the vessels going 
up behind me, at least, half way, the wind being a-head. 


Some wise men undertook to ridicule my experiment of pro- 
pelling this great weight on land, because the motion was too slow 


to be useful. I silenced them by answering, that I would make a. 
carriage to be propelled by steam, for a bet of $3000, to run upon a’ 


level road against the swiftest horse they could produce. I was then 
as confident, as I am now, that such velocity could be given to car- 
riages. 

I am willing to make a steam carriage that will run 15 miles an 
hour, on good level rail ways, on condition that I have double price 
if it shall run with that velocity, and nothing for it, if it shall not 
come up to that velocity. 


His offer had no effect, and there was nobody who had enough 
confidence in his proposals to advance the few thousand dollars 
needed for a thorough trial of his “principles.” Though disappointed 
with the results of his efforts to introduce steam transportation by 
land, Evans viewed the situation philosophically, remarking : 


When we reflect upon the obstinate opposition that has been 
made by a great majority to every step toward improvement; from 
bad roads to turnpikes, from turnpikes to canals; from canals to 
rail-ways for horse-carriages, it is too much to expect the mon- 
strous leap from bad roads to rail-ways for steam carriages, at once. 
One step a generation is all that we.can hope for. If the present 
shall adopt canals, the next may try rail-ways with horses, and the 
third generation use the steam carriages. 


The Latrobe to whom Evans referred was Benjamin Henry 
Latrobe, the architect. He assisted in designing a number of the 
first public buildings. erected at Washington, and after the War of 
1812 he designed the Capitol which replaced the building partly de- 
stroyed by the British. He was a prominent member of the Ameri- 
can Philosophical Society, and like the other members of that or- 
ganization, he displayed an active interest in the development of the 
various branches of science. He had little confidence, however, in 
the steam engine as a useful source of power for transportation. In 
a report made to the Society in 1803 on the improvements made in 


13 


steam engines in America (the report mentioned by Evans) he 
Bald, 


During the general lassitude of mechanical exertion which suc- 
ceeded the American revolution, the utility of steam-engines appears 
to have been forgotten; but the subject afterwards started into very 
general notice, in a form in which it could not possibly be attended 
with much success. A sort of mania began to prevail, which indeed 
has not yet entirely subsided, for impelling boats by steam-engines. 


Nothing in the success of these experiments appeared to be of suf- 
ficient compensation for the expense, and the extreme inconvenience 
of the steam-engine in the vessel. 

There are indeed general objections to the use of steam engines 
for impelling boats, from which no particular mode of application 
can be free. These are; Ist, The weight of the engine and of the 
fewel. 2nd, The large space it occupies. 3rd, The tendency of 
its action to rack the vessel and render it leaky. 4th, The expense 
of maintenance. 5th, The irregularity of its motion, and the motion 
of the water in the boiler and cistern, and of the fuel vessel in rough 
water. Oth, The difficulty arising from the liability of the paddles 
or oars to break, if light; and from the weight, if made strong. Nor 
have I ever heard of an instance, verified by other testimony than 
that of the inventor, of a speedy and agreeable voyage having been 
performed in a steamboat of any construction. 


The subsequent success of the steamboat apparently did not 
* warn Latrobe that the steam engine might also be successfully ap- 
plied in a practical way to land transportation. He left also a record 
of his lack of confidence in railroads. This record is a part of a 
letter written to Albert Gallatin in 1808. Gallatin, while Secretary 
of the Treasury, was requested by the Senate, on March 2, 1807, to 
prepare a report upon the conditions of internal transportation in the 
United States. In preparing the report Gallatin secured the opinions 
of a number of prominent Americans. These opinions were pub- 
lished as a part of the report, and among them appears a communi- 
cation from Latrobe. He was the only one of the correspondents 
to make any reference to the possibility of railroad transportation, 
and his opinion was almost wholly unfavorable. In his letter he de- 
scribed the methods of railroad construction and gave an estimate 
of costs. He was somewhat behind the times in his knowledge of 
railroads, however, because his description showed the rails equipped 


"American Philosophical Society Transactions, VI, 89. 


14 


with flanges, instead of the wheels of the vehicles. His final 
conclusions were as follows: * 


: On a good railroad, descending under an angle of only 
one degree, one horse may draw eight tons in four wagons of two 
tons each without difficulty. The astonishing loads drawn upon 
railroads by horses in England has induced many of our citizens to 
hope for their early application to the use of our country. I fear 
this hope-is vain excepting on a very small scale; and that.chiefly in 
the coal country near Richmond’; for it is evident that upon a rail- 
road-no~other-carriage~but that which is expressly constructed for 
the purpose, can be employed; and that to render a railroad suff- 
ciently saving of the expense of common carriage, to justify the cost 
of its erection, there must be a great demand for its use. But the 
sort of produce which is carried to our markets is collected from 
such scattered points and comes by such a diversity of routes, that 
railroads are out-of-the question as to the carriage of common articles. 
Railroads, leading from coal mines to the margin of the James 
River, might answer their expenses, or others from the marble 
quarries near Philadelphia to the Schuylkill. But these are the only 
instances, within my knowledge, in which they at present might be 
employed, 

- There is, however a use for railroads as a temporary means to 
overcome the most difficult parts of artificial navigation; and for 
this use they are invaluable, and in many instances offer the means 
of accomplishing distant lines of communication which might re- 
min impracticable, even to our national means, for centuries to 
come, 


Just a few weeks before this letter was written, Latrobe’s sec- 
ond son, also named Benjamin Henry, was born. He became one of 
the most distinguished of the early American railway engineers, and 
was for many years the chief engineer of the Baltimore and Ohio 
Railroad, superintending the construction of that line across the Alle- 
ghany Mountains. 

Another early advocate of railroad transportation in the United 
States was John Stevens of New Jersey... Stevens-was perhaps the 
greatest of early American inventors. Throughout his life he 
-showed a deep interest in the promotion of all kinds of mechanical 
improvements. Shortly after the organization of the national gov- 
ernment he sent a memorial to Congress urging the enactment of a 
patent law for the protection and encouragement of inventors. 

In 1804 he operated on the Hudson River a small steamboat 
driven by a screw propeller, and he built a paddle-wheél steamboat 


*American State Papers, Miscellaneous, 916. 


15 


while Fulton was constructing the Clermont. By completing his 
vessel first, Fulton was able to secure a monopoly of steamboat 
transportation on the waters of New York, and Stevens took his 
boat by sea to Philadelphia, operating it for several years on the 
Delaware River. 


The success of the steamboat assured, Stevens turned his atten- 
tion to the use of steam for land transportation. Like Evans, he was 
thoroughly convinced that such transportation was practicable and 
feasible. In 1811 he applied to the legislature of New Jersey for 
a railroad charter. Before action was taken upon this application, 
he heard that the Board of Commissioners for the Improvement of 
Inland Navigation in.New York-was locating the route of a canal 
to. join-the-Hudson River with Lake Erie. Seeing that perhaps a 
better opportunity to try out his plan for a steam railroad existed™ 
in New York than in New Jersey, he addressed a memorial to the 
Board, suggesting that a railroad be built instead of a canal. This 
memorial, together with the reply of the Board, and various other 
documents, were published by Stevens in 1812, under the title, Docu- 
ments Tending to Prove the Superior Advantages of Rail Ways 
and Steam-Carriages over Canal Navigation. ‘This little pamphlet 
was the first important railroad document published in the United 
States. Evans read it, and in his account of his own experiments 
with steam wagons, quoted from above, he made this comment: 


I have been highly delighted in reading a correspondence be- 
tween John Stevens, esq., and the commission appointed by the legis- 
lature of New York, for fixing on the scite of the great canal pro- 
posed to be cut in that state. Mr. Stevens has taken a most compre- 
hensive and ingenious view of this important subject, and his plan 
for rail-ways for the carriages to run upon, removes all the diffi- 
culties that remained. 


In the introduction to his booklet, Stevens summarized his 
opinions on the subject of railroad transportation. He said, “I can 
see nothing to hinder a steam-carriage from moving on these ways 
with a velocity of one hundred miles an hour.” He qualified this 
statement somewhat in a foot-note: “This astonishing velocity is 
considered here as merely possible. It is probable that it may not 
in practice be convenient to exceed twenty or thirty miles per hour. 
Actual experiments, however, can alone determine this matter, and 
I should not be surprised at seeing steam-carriages propelled at the 
rate of forty or fifty miles per hour.” He outlined the advantages 


16 


of the steam railroad both for commercial and for military uses. 
“Armies could be conveyed in twenty-four hours,” he said, “a 
greater distance than it would take them weeks or perhaps months ’ 
to march.” He appealed for the construction of railroads not only 
on account of their certain usefulness, but as a matter of patriotic 
pride. He mentioned the fact that he had laid his plans before 
Congress, hoping that funds might be appropriated from the Fed- 
eral Treasury to conduct initial experiments. His own position in 
the matter he described as follows: 


Should it, however be destined to remain unnoticed by the gen- 
eral government, I confess I shall feel much regret, not so much 
from personal as from public considerations. I am anxious and am- 
bitious that my native country should have the honour of being the 
first to introduce an improvement of such immense importance to 
society at large, and should feel the utmost reluctance at being com- 
pelled to resort to foreigners in the first instance. As no doubt 
exists in my mind but that the value of the improvement would be 
duly appreciated, and carried into effect by trans-Atlantic govern- 
ments, I have been the more urgent in pressing the subject on the 
attention of Congress. Whatever may be its fate, should this appeal 
be considered obtrusive and unimportant, or from whatever other 
cause or motive should be suffered to remain unheeded, I shall still 
have the consolation of having performed what I conceive to be a 
public duty. 


The memorial itself went into considerable detail. Stevens ad- 
vocated a railroad instead of a canal on the grounds that the rail- 
road would be cheaper to construct, and that its carrying capacity 
would be far greater than that of a canal. 

The Board submitted Stevens’ memorial to a committee for in- 
vestigation and report. Before the committee rendered an opinion, 
Robert R. Livingston, a member of the Board, wrote to Stevens ex- 
pressing his doubt as to the feasibility of the plan for railways. He’ 
said : 


I fear, on mature reflection, that they will be liable to serious 
objections, and ultimately more expensive than a canal. They must 
be double, so as to prevent the danger of two such heavy bodies meet- 
ing. The walls on which they are placed must be at least four feet 
below the surface, and three above, and must be clamped with iron, 
and even then they would hardly sustain so heavy a weight as you 
propose moving at the rate of four miles an hour on wheels. As 
to wood, it would not last a week: they must be covered with iron, 
and that too very thick and strong. The means of stopping these 
from running upon each other, (for there would be many on the 


17 


road at once) would be very difficult. In case of accidental stops 
or the necessary stops to take wood and water, etc., many accidents 
would happen. The carriage of condensing water would be very 
troublesome. Upon the whole, I fear the expense would be much 
greater than that of canals, without being so convenient. 


To Livingston’s letter Stevens wrote a long reply, answering 
all the objections raised and giving further arguments in favor of 
the railroads. The report of the committee, to which the Board 
referred the memorial, was more unfavorable even than Livingston’s 
letter. This report, which was sent to Stevens by Governeur Morris, 
asserted that the scheme for railways was wholly impracticable. 
The committee felt that a railroad could not be constructed of suffi- 
cient strength to bear the weight of the traffic which should be car- 


ried, and it was also thought fT a railroad would be uneconomical < 


from an operating standpoint. 


Stevens made a detailed reply to the observations of the com-  \< 


mittee. The problem of comparative.cost- he disposed of briefly: 


Were a canal to cost ten times as much as the proposed rail- 
ways, if decidedly preferable, the difference of expense should by no 
means prevent its being carried into effect. And so, on the contrary, 
should the rail-ways be found most convenient and eligible, the 
difference in expense ought not to be regarded. 


He was greatly disappointed with the action and attitude of the 
New York authorities, and he remained unshaken in his belief that 
the railroad was destined to become the chief highway of trade. He 
argued the matter no further, though he did resort to prophecy, his 
entire prediction escaping fulfillment by a narrow margin. He said: 


But it would be useless to pursue the subject further. Should 
what has been already said be insufficient to open the eyes of the 
Committee, I have only to lament that their blindness on this occa- 
sion will certainly be followed by future regret. A discovery, more 
especially a physical one, when once made, and its development 
fairly exhibited before the public, can never, if of any importance, 
be lost or suppressed. Sooner or later, then, the improvement now 
proposed will be brought into general use, and, if I mistake not, long 
before the expected canal will be completed. 


Failing to secure favorable action in New York, Stevens turned 
again to New Jersey, and on February 6, 1815, received from the 
legislature a charter authorizing the construction of a railroad be- 
tween the Delaware River and the Raritan.1 He could not get the 


*Laws of New Jersey, 39th Session, 2nd Sitting, Statute 68, 1815. 
18 


capital necessary to construct the proposed road, and the charter was 
permitted to lapse. His next effort was in Pennsylvania, where he 
Peete echctaction of a railroad between Philadelphia and Pitts- 
burg. In 1823 he obtained from the Pennsylvania legislature a 
charter for a road between Philadelphia and Columbia.t. Stephen 
Girard was one of the incorporators, but he was apparently unwill- 
ing to do more than lend his name to the enterprise. There was no 
money forthcoming for the project, and construction was never 
started. The charter was repealed in 1826 when the legislature 


undertook the construction of the Main Line of the Pennsylvania 
Public Works. 


So ended Stevens’ fifteen years of effort to convince a scepti- 
cal public that the steam engine offered a means of solving the 
greatest economic problem of the United States. To satisfy himself 
that his views were correct, Stevens built a small circular track 
upon his estate in Hoboken, and on this track, in 1826, he ran a small 
locomotive of his own construction. This was the first steam lo-/ 
comotive built in American territory to operate on rails. But even 
this experiment seems to have had little more influence than the feat 
Evans had performed in 1804. Stevens was seventy-eight years old ~ 
when he built the first American locomotive. He lived ten years 
longer, and witnessed the fulfillment of his prediction that steam 
railway transportation would come into use. Two of his sons, 
Robert Livingston and Edwin Augustus, took a leading part in the 


ean ile Ste 


latter treasurer and general manager. The older son, Robert 
Livingston, made a trip to England to investigate railroads there, 
before beginning construction of the Camden and Amboy. While 
at sea he made a wooden model of the first T-rail, and while in 
England, ordered some iron rails made according to his model. He 
also ordered the locomotive, John Bull, from the Stephenson 
foundry. This locomotive was shipped to the United States in 1831, 
was operated for many years on the Camden and Amboy Rail-~ 
road, and is now in the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. 
Edwin A. Stevens amassed a large fortune from his activities in 
railroad and other transportation enterprises. One of his public 
benefactions was the founding and endowment of Stevens Institute 
in Hoboken. 


*Laws of Pennsylvania, Chapter 148, 1823. 
19 


One other progressive American tried at an early date to 
induce Congress to appropriate money for experimenting with 
steam railroad transportation. This was BenjaminDearborn of 
Boston. He presented a memorial to Congress in 1819, explain- 
ing with some detail the advantages of steam locomotives. His 
memorial was referred to the Committee on Commerce and Manu- 
factures, of the House of Representatives, but no action was ever. 
taken upon it.t_ Like Evans and Stevens, Dearborn was a few) 
years in advance of his times. j 

Notwithstanding the failure of Evans and Stevens to accom- 
plish results of a permanent nature, public interest in_railroad 
transportation finally became active in the United States. Informa- 
tion concerning experimental work in England~began to filter into 
this country, and references to English railroads made ‘their ap-, 
pearance in American newspapers. In 1824 the Pennsylvania 
Society for the Promotion of Internal Improvements sent William 
Strickland to England to make a study of transportation facilities, 
and especially to investigate the work of steam locomotives. Strick- 
land’s report,? published in book form (51 pages with numerous / 
plates) in 1826, attracted wide attention and was reprinted wholly’ 
or in part in several newspapers. Public meetings were held here 
and there to encourage the construction of railroads. The Mohawk 
and Hudson Railroad was chartered in 1826. The same year the 
Quincy tramway was built to convey stone for the Bunker Hill 
monument from a granite quarry in Quincy to the bank of the 
Neponset River. In 1827 the General Court of Massachusetts 
created the Board of Commissioners of Internal Improvements to 
survey routes for railroads from Boston to the boundary line of 
Rhode Island and to the New York boundary line near Albany. The 
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company was chartered, and work on 
this historic line begun. on July 4, 1828. The Pennsylvania legislature 
decided in 1828 that two sections of the Main Line of Public Works 
—that between Philadelphia and Columbia and that across the Alle- 
ghanies—should consist of railroads. Horatio Allen, the engineer of 
the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, went to England to study 
railroad operation, and bought four locomotives, one of which, the 
Stourbridge Lion, was tried out on the Carbondale and Honesdale 


‘Journal of House of Representatives, 15th Congress, 2nd Session, p. 258. 

*Report on Canals, Railways, Roads and Other Subjects, made to the 
Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Internal Improvements by Wm. 
Strickland, Architect and Engineer. 


20 


railroad in 1829 and later discarded because of its excessive weight. 
The Charleston and Hamburg Railroad was chartered in 1829. 
The directors engaged Allen as chief engineer, and determined 
from the beginning to employ steam as motive power, they ordered » 
a locomotive from the West Point foundry in New York. Peter 
Cooper’s little engine,.the.Tom Thumb, made its famous _run.on 
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1830, and convinced the 
directors of that line that steam power was better than horses. 
Illustrated descriptions of English railroads became numerous. 
Books written by English railroad authorities were imported and 
eagerly read. In 1830 Thomas Earle of Philadelphia, brought out 
his Treatise on Rail-Roads and Internal Communications Compiled 
from the Latest and Best Authorities with Original Suggestions 
and Remarks. An American printing of the second (1830) edition 
of Nicholas Wood’s Practical Treatise on Rail-Roads and Internal 
Communications, was published by Carey and Lea of Philadelphia 
in 1832. The American editor, George W. Smith, added chapters 
describing the existing railroads of the United States, and giving 
a number of arguments tending to show the superiority of steam 
‘railroads over other means of transportation. The same year the 
American Railroad Journal, a weekly publication devoted to the 
promotion of railroad construction, was started in New York. 
Legislatures were flooded with applications for railroad charters, 
and construction was begun on a large number of lines. The 
development of the American railroad was fairly started. 

Meanwhile the opposition to railroad construction was gather- 
ing strength. The “railroad mania” drew criticism from many 
sources. 


The Railroad an Impracticable, Uneconomical, and 
Undesirable Means of Transportation 


Even after initial experiments showed that railroad transporta- 
tion was possible, there were many people who persisted in claim- 
ing that it was wholly impracticable, merely because they thought 
it “wouldn’t work”. Other antagonists of the railroads based their 
opposition upon the belief that canals and turnpikes afforded better 
means of transporation. In many cases the claimants of thé 
superior advantages of canals and turnpikes had a financial interest — 
in these facilities, and their opposition to the rival carrier merely | 


21 


reflected their selfish interest, but there were at the same time \ 


many disinterested individuals who honestly believed that ordinary 
highways and artificial waterways would come out victorious in a 
competitive struggle with railroads. 

The difficulties met with in convincing a legislature that a rail- 
road might be useful were described by Gridley Bryant in his 
account of the building of the Quincy tramway. He said: 


I had previous to the laying of the cornerstone (of the Bunker 
Hill monument) purchased a stone-quarry (the funds being fur- 
nished by Dr. John C. Warren) for the express purpose of pro- 
curing the granite for constructing the monument. The quarry was 
in Quincy, nearly four miles from water-carriage. This suggested 
to me the idea of a railroad (the Manchester and Liverpool Rail- 
road being in contemplation at that time, but was not begun until 
the spring following): accordingly in the fall of eighteen hundred 
and twenty-five, I consulted Thomas H. Perkins, William Sullivan, 
Amos Lawrence, Isaac P. Davis and David Moody, all of Boston, 
in reference to it. These gentlemen though the project vision- 
ary and chimerical, but, being anxious to aid the Bunker Hill 
Monument, consented that I might see what could be done. I 
awaited the meeting of our legislature of 1825-26 (in the winter), 
and after every delay and obstruction that could be thrown in the 
way, I obtained a charter, although there was great opposition in 
the House. The quéstfons were asked, “What do we know about 
railroads? Who ever heard of such a thing? Is it right to take 


the people’s land for a project that no one knows anything about? “ 


We have corporations enough already.” Such and_ similar 
objections were made, and various restrictions were imposed, but 
it was finally passed by a small majority only.* 


The second effort to secure the consent of the Massachusetts 
legislature to the construction of a railroad fared much worse than 
Bryant’s effort. The Board of Commissioners of Internal Im+ 


provements, created in 1827, strongly recommended the building 
of a railroad from Boston to the Hudson River opposite the city of | 


Albany. The recommendation was given long consideration by the 
legislature. Investigations of railroads were made, and one com- 
mittee of the legislature traveled to Baltimore to inspect the Balti- 
more and Ohio Railroad. This Committee and other committees 
appointed to make a study of the question, were enthusiastically in 
favor of the proposed railroad across Massachusetts. A bill to in- 
corporate a company to build the road, with the provision that the 


*Charles Francis Adams, Canal and Railroad Enterprise of Boston; in 
Winsor (Ed.) Memorial History of Boston, p. 117. 


eZ 


State should supply the funds for construction, was debated in the 
House of Representatives of the legislature in 1830. The Boston 
Daily Advertiser, published by Nathan Hale, an enthusiastic and 
ardent advocate of railroad construction, carried a good account 
of the debate. The opposition to the road was based on several 
grounds. Some legislators objected to the expenditure of public 
money for railroads, others opposed the line because it would help 
the commerce of Boston, at the expense of other cities and com- 
munities. There was, however, much opposition to railroads, as a 
matter of principle. One speaker opposed the whole project: 


It was premature, it would cost an enormous sum of money, 
and would be worth little or nothing. He begged the House to 
pause, to have mercy on the people, to have some compassion. In 
the winter the snow would be in some places 10 feet deep, and so 
make the railroad useless. Taking into view the difference in the 
value of labour in England and in this country, the railroad would 
cost $23,000,000. We might borrow this money for a time at 5 
per cent, but when that time was out, we should have to pay 6 per 
cent. How would turkies, butter and eggs look after coming over 
a railroad thirty miles an hour? How would pigs and passengers 


travel over it together in the same car? There was nothing else to | 
bring. He called upon the House to wait before they began the, 
work, till they saw a reasonable chance of getting their money’s' 


worth. If they must have a magnificent project, he would go the 
whole length, and would try to bring Heaven down to Earth, or 
Earth to Heaven.* 


A legislator from Salem wanted to experiment a little before 
committing the State to such a grand project. “He....wanted to 


see the operations of locomotives on a railroad, actually out-< 
stripping the winds in their progress, if the,aceounts from England |,» 


were to be believed.” The railroad was impracticable because the 
snow would interfere with its operation. “Méreover there was but 
little traffic between Albany and Boston, and the price of transporta- 
tion between those cities was already low. 


. There would be too, always a reason for preferring the 
old roads, from the difficulty of shifting produce from one vehicle 
into another fit to operate on a railroad. 

The idea of drawing away the trade of New York was 
fallacious. That was a great commercial emporium and it was true 
in trade as in physics, that greater bodies attract more than smaller. 
The rapidity with which we could travel and transport on a railroad 


*Boston Daily Advertiser, January 26, 1830, 
23 


was no object except where the article to be carried or transported 
was perishable. It might be an object so far as transporting fresh 
codfish was concerned but if we were to set about building a rail- 
road to Albany, that would cost millions, that the people of that 
ancient city might enjoy the luxury of fresh codfish for breakfast, 
he should like to know it.? 


The bill finally came to a vote in the House on January 30 and 
was overwhelmingly defeated, 283 to 160. In an editorial in the 
Daily Advertiser of February 1st, Hale roundly condemned the action 
of the House. He called attention to the fact that during the three 
preceding years numerous investigations had been made by com- 
petent engineering authorities and by special committees of the 
legislature, and that without exception, the reports had favored 
the construction of the proposed improvement. He declared, “The 
natural impression, on the minds of those who know that the 
legislature has been for three years earnestly engaged in the in- 
vestigation of this subject, will be, that the enterprise 1s abandoned, 
either because the House are incapable of appreciating one of the 
greatest improvements of modern times, or because the State is 
thought too poor to undertake it.” 

The members of the House of Representatives of the General 
Court of Massachusetts were not the only ones who failed to set 
a proper value upon “one of the greatest improvements of modern 
times.” By the time the State of Pennsylvania completed the rail- 
road between Philadelphia and Columbia, the steam locomotive had 
become a success, and the question arose as to whether steam power 
should be used on the new road. In 1833 and again in 1834 com- 
mittees of the House of Representatives reported in favor of the 
use of steam,” and finally the legislature authorized the Board of 
Canal Commissioners to purchase a number of locomotives.* The 
Board proceeded at once to order fifteen engines, and two of them, 
built by Matthias Baldwin of Philadelphia, were put into use in 
1834. 

The farmers living along the line of the new road for the 
most part looked with deep disfavor upon the use of steam locomo- 
tives. They desired that the railroad should be maintained as a pub- 
lic highway upon which they could use their own horses and 

*Boston Daily Advertiser, January 28th, 1830. 
*Journal of the 43rd House of Representatives, Pennsylvania, Number 216. 
p. 718. Also Journal of the 44th House of Representatives, Number 169, p. 705. 


ee of Pennsylvania, 1833-34, No. 231. Laws of Pennsylvania, 1834-35, 
No. 35. 


24 


wagons. They also disliked the locomotives because their flying 
sparks frequently set fire to buildings, forests and meadows. A 
large number of petitions reached the legislature from the farmers 
of Chester and Lancaster counties, asking that the use of 
locomotives be discontinued, and the railroad made a public high- 
way for the use of everybody. Losses by fire were frequently 
brought to the attention of the legislature. On February 13, 1835, 
Mr. Elijah F. Pennypacker “presented the petition of Joseph J. 
Downing, of Chester county, stating that his barn was destroyed by 
fire communicated from a locomotive engine passing upon the 
Columbia railway, and praying for compensation for loss.” ? 


Opposition to railroads occasionally found expression in 
Congress. In 1836 it was proposed that the Cumberland Road, or 
at least-a part of it, be converted into a railroad. Two powerful 
speeches were made in favor of such action in the House of 
Representatives, one by William Jackson of Massachusetts, and the 
other by T. Webster of Ohio. The opposition was strong enough 
to defeat the proposal. Several speeches were made-against the 
change, but unfortunately the record does not preserve the remarks 
of the opponents of the railroad. The character of their views may 
be seen however, in the following extract from Jackson’s speech. 


And nothing is more surprising to me than the strange deter; 
mination manifested by intelligent gentlemen of this floor, to throw 
dust into each other’s eyes, in relation to this very important project. 
A railroad is a monopoly !—not so democratic! They are willing 
that gentlemen of wealth and aristocrats, should build railroads, 
and travel on them if they choose! But their constituents are all 
democratic republicans—plain men—and want a road on which they 
can all travel together; no toll, no monopoly, nothing exclustve—a 
real “people’s road” ag 

The honorable gentleman from Indiana, (Lane) says, “What 
if a railroad is better?”—and intimates that if the people prefer a 
common road, it being for their use, gentlemen from other parts of 
the Union ought not to interfere in the matter.’ 


The problem of compensating railroads for the transportation 
of the mails received the attention of Congress at an early date, 
and in the course of the discussion of this subject there were many 


*Notice of such petitions in the Journal of the 45th House of Representatives, 
Pennsylvania, 1835, pp. 199, 268, 335, 360, 379, 399, 471, 493; and in the Journal 
of the Senate, Pennsylvania, 1835, pp. 301, 306, 317. 

“Journal of the 45th House of Representatives, Pennsylvania, p. 368. 

*Register of Debates of Congress, 1836, p. 4498. 


74s) 


NS 
‘ 


remarks about the efficiency of the new means of transportation. 
For the most part, members of Congress soon came to realize that 
the railroads afforded a means of transporting the mails superior 
to any means previously employed. Nevertheless there were 
numerous expressions of doubt. Senator Thomas H. Benton, “did 
not think they ought to surrender, so quickly, and agree that they 
could not get along with the business of the country without the 
aid of these railroad companies.” He thought that with a proper 
organization of the service, the mails could be carried just as rapidly 
by horses as on the steam railroad. 


He had understood that great delays, by which passengers were 
subject to much inconvenience, had occurred on one of these rail- 
roads—the railroad from Baltimore to Wheeling. He had been 
told by a gentleman who had recently traveled on that road, that 
the delays to which they had been subjected had been so vexatious 
that they had cause to regret that railroads had superseded the old 
mode of travel.* 


During the early days of the railroad there were many people 
who held firmly to the opinion that the turnpike afforded a faster 
and safer means of travel than the steam highway. Numerous 
pamphlets were published in England to show that the railroad 
would be of but little public benefit. The success of the Rocket 
on the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad did not convince the 
doubters that a new era in transportation was at hand. Alexander 
Gordon, a distinguished civil engineer, published several pamphlets 
to prove the superiority of the turnpike. One of his pamphlets, 
printed nine years after the first trip of the Rocket, bearing the title, 
Observations Addressed to Those Interested in Either Ratl-Ways or 
. Turnpike Roads, contains the following passages: 


The prevailing mania for general edge rail-way communication 
must be viewed with no little anxiety by land-owners, road-trustees, 
inkeepers, post-masters, carriers, and by others interested in the ex- 
isting lines of turnpike-road, and also by those who value this 
important branch of our inland intercourse, threatened, as “these 
good old ways” are, with extinction, by speculators in what, in the 
opinion of many, is still an untried system of rail-way intercourse. 
The proposers and supporters of the many rail-way schemes now 
before the public have taken for granted that it is by rail-ways alone 
that vast political, agricultural, and moral advantages are to result 
to this country; and I have often heard my own arguments reiter- 


*Congressional Globe, 24th Congress, 1st Session, 1836, p. 374. 
26 


‘ 
Wf 


ated as if they had been adduced to establish rail-way monopolies. . . 


When looking at the recent introduction of edge rail-ways for 
purposes of general traffic, and at the proposed extension of such 
roads across the country in main and branch lines, I have for some 

years entertained and adhered to the following propositions: 


1. The mechanical advantage of an edge ratl-way 1s small 
when compared with a good turnptke-road. 


2. This advantage is too trifling to warrant the expenditure 
of the large capital requisite for attaining it. 

3. In the event of rail-ways for general traffic being formed 
to the great leading towns, public and individual interest will be 
needlessly injured, however much, or however little, rail-way pro- 
prietors may benefit by them. 

4. Turnpike-roads can be improved and made available for 
\. purposes of the most expeditious, safe and beneficial internal com- 
\munication, 


After demonstrating (to his own satisfaction at least) the 
truth of each of these propositions, he concludes as follows :— 


If the above observations be correct, wherein I have shown, 
—that the first assertions of the rail-way engineers as to the limited 
velocity of canal conveyance have been upset,—that according to 
the immutable laws of motion, the edge rail-way can merely reduce | 
surface resistance,—that all the reduction of surface-resistance 
which can be effected by an edge rail-way, is not worth making, 
when the line is anywhere but on a dead level—that variations in 
level are absolutely necessary for the manufactures, trade, and 
population of the country, that surface-resistance can be reduced 
by other means than by rails,—that these other means would be 
more economical, permit of more traffic, and consequently furnish 
more toll-returns to the road-proprietors, that a system dangerous 
to the interests of the public, from its withdrawing repairs, 
travellers, and business from existing roads, from its being*that’ of 
a monopoly destructive of freedom in the carrying trade, mand” un- 
avoidably attended with much loss of life, could be obviated, — 
that the velocity of rail-way travelling may be attained by other 
nrearis, means approved of by several of the most eminent engineers, 
although. unknown to or not appreciated by rail-way engineers,— 
that agriculturists might have conveyance much more for their 
interests than rail-ways, from their exclusive nature, can ever be,— 
and that the expenditure of forty millions of pounds proposed for 
rail-ways would prevent ofthe supply of necessary funds for more 
approved systems of intercourse;—if there be any advantage in 
having roads of the country PUBLIC property, and not at the 
mercy of companies of private speculators,—if the convenience of 


27 


the public be better provided for by a more general system of 
locomotion, and by the number of times of starting without waits 
ing for the filling of a long rail-way train ;—if the boasted excellence” 
of the rail- -way..system for military purposes be upset by. certain 
death which the disaffected might spread merely by shifting one 
rail, or by placing a stone upon the road ;—my readers will approve | 
of an affirmation which I formerly made, “that a short time will | 
see the general edge rail-way system deprecated, as commercially,’ 
agriculturally, and politically hurtful,’—and conclude with me, that 
turnpike-roads may be so much improved, that every branch of the 
carrying trade may be conducted thereon, at much more moderate 
prices than now charged,—and that, above all, the benefits resulting 
from expeditious locomotion may be obtained on the same public 
roads. 


It did not take long for the fast steam passenger train to prove 
its superiority to the stage-coach, and wherever railroads were , 
built parallel to turnpikes, travelers adopted the new means of/ 
conveyance, and the stage lines were abandoned because of lack of 
patronage. There were some people, however, who did not admire 
the change. They sincerely regretted the passing of the old ways of 
travel. The greater speed of the steam trains did not compensate 
for their disadvantages. One traveler, Samuel Breck, thus recorded 
his opinions of railroad travel: 


July 22, 1835.—This morning at nine o’clock I took passage 
in a railroad car (from Boston) for Providence. Five or six other 
cars were attached to the locomotive, and uglier boxes I do not wish 
to travel in. They were huge carriages made to stow away some 
thirty human beings, who sit cheek by jowl as best they can. 
Two poor fellows, who were not much in the habit of making 
their toilet, squeezed me into a corner, while the hot sun drew 
from their garments a villainous compound of smells made up of 
salt fish, tar and molasses. By and by, just twelve—only twelve— 
bouncing factory girls were introduced, who were going on a party 
of pleasure to Newport. ‘Make room for the ladies,” bawled the 
superintendent. “Come, gentlemen, jump up on the top; plenty of 
room there.” “I’m afraid of the bridge knocking my brains out,’ 
said a passenger. Some made one excuse and some another. For 
my part, I flatly told him that since I belonged to the corps of 
Silver Grays I had lost my gallantry, and did not intend to move. ° 
The whole twelve, were, however, introduced, and soon made them- 
selves at home, sucking lemons and eating green apples. There is 
certainly a growing neglect of manners and insubordination to laws, 
a democratic familiarity and a tendency to level all distinctions. The 
rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant, the polite and the 
vulgar, all herd together, in this modern improvement in travelling. 


28 


yoo 


The consequent result is-a complete _ amalgamation... Master and 
sérvant sleep heads and oints on the renin floor of the steamer, 
feed-atthe™sainé table, sit in each other’s laps, as it were, in the 
cars; and all this for the sake of ‘doing very uncomfortably. in two 
days what would“be done delightfully in-eight-or-ten:~-Shall-we be 
nitich longer kept in this toilsome~fashion~of~ hurrying, hurrying, 
from starting (those who can afford it) on a journey with our own 
horses, and moving slowly, surely-cand_profitably..through the 


country, with the power.of enjoying its beauty.and be--the.-means- 


‘of creating good inns?..Undoubtedly, a line of post-horses and 


post-chaises would long ago have been established along our great , 


roads had not steam monopolized everything. Steam, so useful 
in many respects, interferes with the comfort of travelling, destroys 
every salutary distinction in society, and overturns by its whirling 
power the once rational, gentlemanly and safe mode of getting 
along on a journey. Talk of ladies-on-board.a steamboat or. rail- 
road car! There are none. I never feel like a gentleman there, 
and I cannot perceive a semblance of gentility in any one who makes 
part of a travelling mob. When I see women who in their draw- 
ing rooms or elsewhere I have been accustomed to respect and 
treat with every suitable deference—when I see them, I say, elbow- 
ing their way through a crowd of dirty emigrants or low-bred, 
home-spun fellows in petticoats or breeches in our country, in order 


to reach a table spread for a hundred or more, I lose sight of their | 


pretensions to- gentility and view them as belonging to the plebeian 

ferd.. _To restore herself to her casté; let™a lady move in select 

pupae: at five miles ‘an hour, and fake her meals in comfort at a 
i inn, where..she may. dine “decently 


Unlike some rieeitione of Congress, who held the railroad in 
contempt as being designed for the use of aristocrats, Mr. Breck 
was depressed by the aspect of democracy which every railroad car- 
riage and steamboat presented to his view. In England the railroad 


managers endeavored to preserve social distinctions by affording dif- , 


ferent “classes” of service, but in the United States the spirit of 
equality forbade such attempts at discrimination. Continued expe- 
rience with railroads did not soften Mr. Breck’s attitude. Four 
years after he wrote the opinion quoted above, he made the follow- 
ing comment: 


December 31, 1839.—The modern fashion in all things is “to 
go ahead”, push on, keep moving, and the faster the better— 
never mind comfort or security or pleasure. Dash away, annihilate 
space by springing at a single jump, as it were, from town to town, 
whether you have pressing business or not. 


*Recollections of Samuel Breck, pp. 275-76. 
29 


nA 


“How do you mean to travel?” asks Neighbor John. “By rail- 
road, to be sure, which is the only way of travelling now; and if © 
one could stop when one wanted, and if one were not locked up in 
a box, with fifty or sixty tobacco chewers ; and the engine and fire | 
did not burn holes in one’s clothes; and the springs and hinges / 
didn’t make such a racket; and the smell of the smoke of the oil ait 
of the chimney did not poison one ; and if one could see the country, 
and were not in danger of being blown sky high or knocked off the 
rails—it would be the perfection of travelling.” After all the old 
fashioned way of five or six miles an hour, with one’s own horses 
and carriage, with liberty to dine decently in a decent inn and be 
the master of one’s movements, with the delight of seeing the 
country and getting along rationally, is the mode to which I cling, 
and which will be adopted again by the generations of after times.’ 


Another traveler\of the early days of the railroad left in his 
diary an interesting comparison of the three common methods of 
conveyance. John Parsons, a young Virginian, started from his 
home in Petersburg in 1840, to make a tour through the “West”. 
From Petersburg to Richmond, and from Richmond to Fredericks- 
burg, he went by “railroad train”. His impression was not a 
favorable one: 


This method of traveling, a new one to me, is in the main very 
pleasant, but the rumbling, tremulous motion of the cars is not very 
agreeable, and after the novelty has worn off, the pleasure of it is 
much diminished by the fumes of the oil, the hissing of the steam, 
and the scorching of the cinders which are falling around you. 
Neither is it a very rapid method of traveling, for T noted that we 
did not go beyond seven or eight miles an hour, 

It was therefore, with a ‘sensation of pleasure that I left the 
railroad at Fredericksburg to enter the stage coach which was to 
take me the nine hilly miles to Potomac Creek, where I found 
the steamboat. This last is a most excellent method of travel when 
the boat is, as this was, spacious, rapid and very clean.’ 


The advocates of the stage-coach were, however, in a hopeless | 
minority. They-were witnessing an economic revolution and did f 
not know it. The day of the stage line in the East was ended, and? 
as the railroad net grew, the coaches were sold for use in the States | 
west of the Alleghanies, where after a few years they were again | 
supplanted and transferred to the long highways between the/ 
Missouri River and the Pacific Coast. During the twenty years 

"Recollections of Samuel Breck, p. 277. 


*Kate Milner Rabb (Editor), A Tour Through Indiana, Diary of John 
Parsons of Petersburg, Virginia, p. 2. 


30 


following the introduction of the railroad, such events as the one 
described in the following paragraph were not uncommon: 


Last Wednesday, four superb Stage Coaches, each drawn by 
six noble horses, passed through town, on their way to Columbus, 
Ohio. They were from Worcester and were formerly running 
between that town and Boston, and also on the Norwich road, both 
of which are rendered comparatively. useless for Stages-in-con- 
sequence-of.the Railroads.* 


The debate over the relative merits of railroads and canals as) 
carriers of freight was not settled so easily and so quickly as the 
argument about the advantages of railroads and turnpikes. Rail- 
road construction began in the United States just at the time that 
canal transportation had achieved a high degree of popularity. The 
Erie Canal, completed in 1825, proved to be a highway of immense 
value, and other States, Penniated to action by the success of the 
New York enterprise, began to plan and execute extensive programs 
of canal construction. In a number of cases, railroads were pro- 
jected to run parallel to canals, and a controversy at once arose as 
to which of the two means of conveyance would have the advantage 
in competition for traffic. It was soon generally conceded that 
the railroad would be superior to the canal for the transportation 
of passengers; but the advocates of canal construction were far 
from admitting that the railroad would achieve any substantial } 
measure of success as a carrier of freight. 


A heated controversy on the subject of railroads and canals 
arose between the adherents of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and 
of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Both these improvements were 
projected for the purpose of connecting the waters of the 
Chesapeake Bay with the Ohio River. They were started on the 
same day, July 4, 1828, President John Quincy Adams officiating 
at the celebration which marked the beginning of the canal, and 
Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last surviving signer of the 
Declaration of Independence, being the central figure of the impos- 
ing rival ceremony at Baltimore. The people of Baltimore naturally 
looked with favor upon railroads, while the citizens of Washington 
regarded railroads with scorn, and placed their faith unreservedly 
in canals. The newspapers of the rival cities took up the debate. 


*Hazard’s United States Commercial and Statistical Register, December 25, 
1839. (Quoted from the Northampton (Mass.) Courier). 


31 


The National Intelligencer of Washington was an ardent defender 
of artificial waterways: 


We have with surprise seen it remarked, lately, in a highly 
respectable paper in Virginia, and repeated elsewhere, that the 
impression is becoming universal, that Rail-Roads, for the purpose 
of transportation, will altogether supersede canals. We suppose 
the impression prevails to a considerable extent, or we should not 
have found it in this form. In whatever form we have found it, or 
may hereafter find it, we cannot but consider it erroneous and 
fallacious. 


A Rail-Road, for distant transportation, is an experiment 
wholly untried in any country, and but lately begun, in the instance 
of the Baltimore Rail-Road. The longest Rail-Road ever con- 
structed before, or begun to be constructed, is the Manchester and 
Liverpool Rail-Road in England, the length of which is 35, or at 
most, 40 miles. And where is this Rail-Road situated? It is the 
conduit from the great and unequalled Manufacturing town of 
Manchester, to the greatest seaport of England, whence the 
manufactures of this and other towns are exported to all of the 
world. It is also connected with the great Manufacturing towns 
of Sheffield, Leeds, etc., and countless villages and factories. It 
passes over a comparatively level ground, through a community 
dotted with villages, and a redundant and prosperous population. 
There is not a half mile in the whole distance, perhaps, within which 
might not be found assistance and facilities to repair accidents, 
of any description, occurring to the cars, wagons, and steam engines. 
The goods to be transported on it are of great value and small 
bulk. This Rail-Road, nevertheless, supported by all the wealth of 
the merchants and Manufacturers of those towns, has had great 
difficulties to struggle with. The Rail-Road begun at Baltimore in 
our vicinity, has to struggle against obstacles from which, as we 
have seen, the English Rail-Road is comparatively free, and is to 
be ten times in length or nearly. If we know ourselves we have , 
no unfriendly feeling to that undertaking. We shall be glad, indeed, \ 
to see it, in good time, reach its destination, but the idea of its | 
successfully competing with a canal of the same length, over a | 
rough and comparatively wild country, passes the bounds of / 
probability. 


Let our friends elsewhere pursue their Rail-Roads; but let us 
also hold to our canal, which is to be the channel of the wealth of 
the West, and the source of almost inconceivable prosperity, not to 
us, perhaps, who are now on the stage of life, but certainly to the 
District of Columbia—we hope, also, to our sister Baltimore, who, 
either by her Rail-Road, or by a lateral canal, will doubtless obtain 
her share of the vast commerce which will be carried on, in no long 


32 


» 


— 
“ 
. - 


time to come, between the West and the East, through the tunnel 
of the Alleghany.* 


The editor of the Baltimore American made a spirited reply 
to the observations of the National Intelligencer, calling attention 
to the great advantages which would result from the use of the 
steam locomotive on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The 
National Intelligencer made prompt response: 


But this fact has no bearing whatever on the question between 
Rail-Roads and Canals. Whatever can be effected on a Rail-Road 
by Steam power, can, beyond doubt, be effected with double 
facility on_a canal; not perhaps with the same velocity, but with 
cértainty and economy. 


For this day we will only suggest one advantage of a canal, not 


heretofore adverted to, which is wholly denied to a Rail-Road. Ons 


a canal, the farmer in Ohio or Western Pennsylvania, or Maryland, 
or Virginia, may, in a leisure time, hitch his wagon_ horses 
to_a_boat, built..from_his.own.timber, loaded with the produce of 
his own farm, and travel down the tow path with his whole year’s 


crop (and his neighbor’s besides), on one bottom, and return back \- ‘\ 


in the same way, loaded with whatever pleases him in the market. , 
On a Rail-Road (admitting its practicability) he must commit it to” 
cars and “locomotive” machines, and keep what company he can 
with it, if he can find the money to bear its expense to market, and 
get back in the same way, the expense of going and coming con- 
suming half the value of his freight. He cannot put his wagon on 
the Rail-Road, nor can he drive his cattle and hogs upon it.” 


Not all the stockholders of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal 
Company shared the confidence felt by the editor of the Jntelligen- 
cer in the future prosperity of the waterway. One stockholder, 
apparently convinced of the truth of the prediction that railroads 
would eventually supersede canals, wrote a letter to the Umited 
States Telegraph, expressing the hope that the prosecution of the 
canal would be discontinued and a railroad built in its place.* This 
letter drew a prompt reply from a canal advocate, who in a letter 
to the /ntelligencer, endeavored to quiet the fears of the doubting 
stockholder. 


An engineer of high standing in Liverpool, who is in con- 
stant correspondence with a gentleman of this city, known as an 
‘National Intelligencer, January 30, 1830. 


*Ibid., February 4, 1830. 
°United States Telegraph, February 6, 1830. 


33 


advocate of Rail-Roads, uses language to this effect in some of his 
recent letters, which have been read to me: But let me advise 
you by all means to avoid embarking on these expensive raii-ways 
until you have seen the effect of them on this side of the water; 
there is much, very much, yet to learn on the subject, it is the 
hobby at present, and one which is ridden unmercifully. One good 
effect, however, arises from it—it scatters.overgrown.fortunes,,. and 
gives. employment to the poor. ~ 

With these extracts I will stop, in the constant hope, that they 
may serve to lessen the Ratl-Road mania which appears to be making 
at this time such fearful strides.* 


To a statement appearing in the Baltimore Gazette, claiming 
that railroads would be greatly superior to canals because freezing 
weather would not prevent railroad operation, the editor of the 
Intelligencer made this response: 


The editor of the Baltimore Gazette urges upon us, as an 
argument against canals, in this comparison, that they are sub- 
ject to be closed by ice, from the effects of which Rail-Roads are 
exempt. This is a fair argument as far as it goes, but it is out- 
weighed all to nothing, by the advantages of Canals for every pur- 
pose of an agricultural country. In return, we suggest to him, that 
a fall of snow will make a Rail-Road three hundred miles long 
impassable, sometimes for weeks, without the warning of impend- 
ing ice, which the almanac affords, when it marks the advent of 
Christmas Day; and that heavy floods in the summer season will 
wash earth over them in quantities, which (as in deep cuts) it may 
take weeks, if not months, to remove. A single slide of earth in 
one of these deep cuts, will obstruct a Rail-Road more than a 
Winter’s ice will a canal. We do not make these objections to 
Rail-Roads, any more than our friend in Baltimore makes ice in 
canals: we are sorry that they exist. But when an account is 
settled, we must look at the debtor as well as the creditor side, be- 
fore the balance is struck.’ 


Another letter published in the Intelligencer showed a slightly 
different form of argument against railroads. It was signed “A 
Plain Man’: 


Rail-Roads-are very artificial things. 

When you have once dug the ditch or trench for the canal and 
let in the water, you have a natural agent on which your boat is 
floated, as on a river. 

But rails, whether of iron or wood, on which your merchandise 
is to be™ carried, are things of art altogether. The vehicles above 


*National Intelligencer, February 13, 1930. 
*I bid. 


34 


\ Be 


hmm 


all the one that contains the propeller engine, whether fixed or 
stationary, which puts the whole in motion, are complicated con- 
trivances of art. Compared to a common canal boat the latter has 
the advantage of fifty to one in simplicity. 

Many a farmer is ablé-to build a boat on his own land, that 
would do for a canal: but how many could make a locomotive 
carriage and engine like the “Novelty”, for instance or the “Rocket”, 
or manage such things along a Rail-Road after they are made? 

Being altogether things of art, Rail-Roads are only suited to 
countries highly..advanced. 

“They are seen only in the most populous and wealthy parts of 
such countries. 

It is further remarkable, that they have only been found to 
answer for short distances, even in such parts of such countries.’ 


A spring freshet that temporarily submerged a part of the 
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad gave the editor of the Intelligencer 
an opportunity for the following facetious comment: 


The latest good thing that we have seen is the recommenda- 
tion of the Baltimore American, of yesterday’s date to the 
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company to turn their canal into a 
Rail-Road! The gravity with which this waggery is carried on 
adds mightily to the zest of it. _We had like to have fallen into 
the same error as regards to it as some people do occasionally with 
our jokes—that is to take them seriously. The last report we had 
from the Rail-Road was, that it was becoming a canal, at least in 
parts of it, without waiting for the conversion of the company 
from the error of their ways. That it will be converted into a 
canal, in the end, we have no more doubt that we have in the entire 
and triumphant success of our canal.” 


The Federal Government purchased a large block of stock in 
the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, and the legislatures of 
Maryland and Virginia also bore a share of the expense of con- 
structing the canal. The Baltimore and ®hio Railroad was 
fortunate in being able to secure financial assistance from the city 
of Baltimore. Both companies were anxious to secure further 
appropriations of public funds. At an early date in the history of 
the two enterprises the rival corporations became engaged in an 
exceedingly bitter legal contest over the right of way through the 
narrow part of the Potomac Valley extending from the Point of 
Rocks to Harper’s Ferry. “The dispute about the right-of-way and 


Von appeals for financial aid provided the occasion for an exhaustive 


‘National Intelligencer, March 4, 1830. 
*Ibid., April 13, 1830. 


35 


investigation of the relative merits of canals and railroads, in the 
course of which both sides presented all the arguments they could 
gather in favor of their respective projects. 


In 1831 the Committee on Internal Improvements of the House 
of Delegates of the Maryland legislature requested the officials of 
the two companies to submit reports which would enlighten the 
Committee as to the “relative expense, benefits, and facilities of con- 
structing railroads and canals, with a view. to ascertaining to-which 
of these means the funds of the State can be more beneficially 
applied.” Both corporations submitted the desired reports. The 
report of the railroad company maintained, among other things, 
that canals were much more expensive to construct than railroads, 
estimating the cost of a canal to be probably fifty per cent. greater 
than the cost of a railroad, both built under substantially similar 
conditions.” . 

The third annual report of the President and Directors of the 
canal company contained a sharp criticism of the estimates prepared 
by the railroad company. A copy of this annual report, with a 
large number of letters and other documents designed to show the 
superiority of canals over railroads, was submitted to Congress by 
the President of the canal company in December 1831, appended to 
a memorial asking additional financial assistance from the Federal 
Treasury.’ 

Among the letters submitted was one from Josiah White, Acting 
Manager of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company. A _ part 
of his letter ran as follows: 


Railroads are a great improvement over turnpikes; but, in my 
opinion, are vastly inferior (particularly as a public work, and in a 
republican country) to canals, both as to convenience as well as to 
economy. A canal is accessible. anywhere, a railroad nowhere 
(without interrupting-the current of traffic) except by an arrange- 
ment for turning out; and the more turn outs are made, the greater 
the casualties. By canal every boatman may choose his own motion, 
within the maximum motion; by railroad every traveller must have 
the same motion, or be subject to turn outs; which, as I have said, 
have their casualties. The motion of twenty or thirty miles an hour 
on railroads will be fatal to wagons, road and loading, as well as 
to human life. 


*The report of the railroad company to the Committee of the House of 
Delegates may be found in House Document Number 101, 22nd Congress, 1st 
Session, pp. 201-207. 

*House Document Number 18, 22nd Congress, Ist Session (1831-32). 


36 


cp 


I think it rather fortunate for society, that railroads are not of 
equal value to canals, for a railroad can be taken anywhere; and, 
consequently, no improvements would be safe on their line; for the 
moment the improvement succeeded, it would be rivaled, so as to 
destroy both, &c., whereas we know the line and limit of our canals, 
by the supply of water and the graduation of the ground; so that 
all improvements thereon are safe against the undermining of rivals. 
I should consider, that, if the railroads superseded canals, they 
would, for the above reasons, render the tenure or value of property 
as insecure as it would be without the protection of the law.1 


Benjamin Wright, the famous. New..York engineer, who had 
surveyed the route for the Erie Canal in 1811-12 and later super- 
intended the construction of the middle section of that water- 
way, also gave testimony in favor of canals, in a letter to the 
President of the Chesapeake and Ohio Company. Wright later be- 
came chief engineer of the canal. He said in part: 


You ask me my opinion of the comparative advantages of canals 
and railroads, as applied to the Potomac Valley, and the great plan 
of connection between the eastern and western waters? 


I am decidedly in favor of a canal in preference to a railroad, 
and more particularly for that part between tidewater and Cumber- 
land, and between Pittsburg and the mouth of Casselman’s river. . . 

I am probably, at this time, in a minority in the United States 
as to my opinion of the comparative advantages between canals and 
railroads. I have very little doubt that I shall be in the majority 
before two years more are expired. 


I admit that, for passengers, a railroad is a useful and rapid \ 


conveyance, but in our country, and particularly in the Potomac 


valley, the passengers are a small matter compared with the products 
-of the soil and the forests and mines. 


“But that great advantage a canal will always have over a_rail- 


‘road consists in the little mind, or thought, that is required to use 


it. -Any man or boy can navigate a_canal,. but it» requires much 
more mechanical skill to manage a railroad even by horse power, 


and many times as much more, to manage a locomotive. I con- 
\.sider a long line of railroad, when the power is often changed, as 
‘jit necessarily must be, in passing from Baltimore over the mountains, 


as a very complicated..machine;..asliable.to have its parts get out 
of order, at a distance from any work shop, where repairs can be 
made; and-as. -being-odious-in-this-country, as a monopoly of carry- 


q ing, which it necessarily must be. A canal, on the contrary, is open 
to any who builds a-boat, and he. may travel or stop, where or how . 


he pleases, if- he does not interrupt the passing of others, 
"House Document Number 18, 22nd Congress, 1st Session, pp. 171-72. 
37 


& 
me 


In short I place a railroad between a good turnpike and a canal 
I consider the expense.of.transportation, from the little experience 
I have had, to be about in the proportion of three to one, as between 
a canal and a railroad, in favor of the former, “without tolls on 
either. All these opinions are the conclusions of my own mina, 
from critical examinations of works of both kinds. 


An extract from the annual report of the Pennsylvania Canal 
Commissioners of 1831, gave support to the contentions of the 
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company: 


While the board avow themselves favorable to railroads 
wherever it is impracticable to construct canals, or under some 
peculiar circumstances, yet they cannot forbear expressing the 
opinion, that the advocates of railroads generally, have greatly over- 
rated their comparative value.” 


The advantages of canals were summed up as follows: 


Ist. That the actual cost of any canal or railroad must depend 
on the plan adopted for each work, and the character of the ground 
over which it is conducted, both as to the quality of its soil or 
materials, and the regularity or inclination, of its surface. 

2nd. That the prime cost of the best constructed railroad, of 
two tracks only, passing over the most favorable ground, must ever 
greatly exceed the prime cost of the best constructed canal, of 
ordinary dimensions, passing over ground equally favorable for 
this species of conveyance. 

3rd. That the best constructed railroads, of two tracks, in 
Europe or America, and there are none, in either country, as yet, 
with more than two, exceed in their original cost,.the best con- 
structed canals in America, of ordinary dimensions. 

4th. That the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, as ac- 
knowledged by the last annual report of its President and Directors, 
to be imperfectly made for two-thirds of its extent below the Point 
of Rocks, and”“having but two tracks, will cost, per mile, nearly or 
quite as much, and if its obvious defects are hereafter supplied, 
probably more than the Chesapeake and Ohio canal, which, when 
done, will be the largest in the world; and in construction, inferior 
to none. 

5th. That the actual cost of transportation for commodities, 
on the only railroad in England, of two tracks, on stone sills, and 
fitted for the exchange of commodities between its extremes, ex- 
ceeds the actual cost of transportation on any of the canals of or- 
dinary dimensions in the United States in the ratio of near-or quite 
three to one, and this, whether the propelling power be animal labor 
or steam, 


‘House Document Number 18, 22nd Congress, 1st Session, pp. 173-175. 
th Did.. Dp, AZZ. 


38 


>> 


6th. That the cost of transportation on-the first and best con- 
structed division of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, a division 
which has cost $60,000 a mile, has not been reported by the Presi- 
dent and Directors of that company, but probably exceeds the cost 
of transportation on the Liverpool and Manchester railroad, and is 
thrice _as great_as the.cost.of.transportation on theChesapeake and 
Ohio canal. 

7th. That the relative cost of keeping up, by annual repairs, 


the fixed capital vested in the construction of railroads, and their 


necessary appurtenances, and of canals, has not been as yet deter- 
mined by actual experience for a series of years; but must prove 
to be greatly in favor of canals so constructed as to have no perish- 
able structures about them, except the wood of the lock gates, and 


' certain parts of the houses of their..attendants. 


8th. And hence it follows, that where great velocity is not re- 


“quired for the transportation of the commodities of a country, as 


in one, the chief commerce of which consists of the rude production 
of its forests, mines and agriculture, canals furnish a much more 
valuable channel of trade, than railroads. 

9th. But if rapid motion be desired, such have been the late 
discoveries made in propelling passage boats on the canal in Scot- 
land, that a rational and well grounded hope may be indulged, of 
approximating the speed of travelling on canals very near to the 
uséftl or practical velocity. on the best constructed railroads. of..two 
or more tracks, 

10th. There will remain, then, to counterbalance all these con- 
siderations in favor of canals having an adequate supply of water 
but one advantage in favor of railroads of any number of tracks, 
that of being unobstructed by ice during that part of each winter in 
which the canal may be frozen so deep as to be innavigable. Many 
winters, as far north as the valley of the Potomac, like that of 1827 
and 1828, afford no ice, at any time, of the thickness of three inches. 
None are so intensely severe as to pass without occasional thaws. <= . 


llth. To counterbalance this disadvantage, snow in winter), ° 


and dust in summer, will be more injurious to railroads than canals. 
A remedy for the last cause is purchased, as we have seen, on the 
Liverpool and Manchester railroad, at a heavy cost of labor. Ina 
thinly peopled country, in passing successive ranges of inaccessible 
as well as lofty mountains, beneath precipices of rocks éxtending 
for miles together, the removal of drifts of snow, in winter, would 
be attended with still greater expense, and in snow storms or ice 
sleets of many hours or several days’ duration, would be nearly 
impracticable. 

12th. The freezing of the water in a canal, is then the sole 
consideration, operating in the comparison unsettled between canals 
and railroads, to the prejudice of the former.* 


*House Document Number 18, 22nd Congress, 1st Session, pp, 221-222. 


39 


The memorial of the canal company with its accompanying 
documents came, in due time, to the notice of the president of the 
Baltimore and Ohio, who transmitted it to the chief engineer 
of the railroad, Jonathan Knight, with instructions to prepare a 
reply, dealing with the mechanical efficiency of the railroad, its cost 
of construction, and its cost of operation. The engineer made an 
able defence of the railroad, reiterating all the claims which had pre- 
viously been made in the report to the House of Delegates of the 
Maryland legislature, and replying to the criticisms which the presi- 
dent of the canal company had directed at that report. One state- 
ment made by the railroad advocate was of particular significance: 


We see no cause to change our opinions, as then expressed with 
regard to the relative merits of canals and railways. Public opinion 
and public interest will settle the question in due time, and we rest 
assured, that, at the same time that it is the tribunal of the last resort, 
the decision will be just.? 


The controversy between the adherents of the Baltimore and 
Ohio Railroad and of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal was repeated 
in New York between the friends of the State waterways and the 
promoters of the early New York railroads, though the debate in 
New York did not give rise to such voluminous documentary testi- 
mony as the Potomac Valley affair. Benjamin Wright, the New: 
York engineer, who displayed such a decided preference for canal 
transportation in the Potomac Valley, was appointed by the Gover- 
nor of New York, in 1834, to undertake a survey of the route of 
the proposed New York and Erie Railroad, which had been char- 
tered in 1832. The legislature was contemplating advancing a large 
sum of money for the construction of this road, and there was a 
demand for expert opinion as to the feasibility of the project. Judge 
Wright completed the survey in December, 1834, and in his report 
strongly recommended the construction of the railroad. 

In the first annual report of the president and directors of the 
New York and Erie Railroad, the following statement appears: 


No sooner, however, was the report of Judge Wright presented 
to the legislature, showing the feasibility of completing, at moderate 
expense, the desired channel of intercourse through the southern 
section of the State, than a combination of local interests, singularly 
violent in character, was arrayed to defeat the enterprise. The most 
active and determined exertions were made, openly by some, and cov- 


‘House Document Number 101, 22nd Congress, 1st Session, p. 174. 
40 


ertly by others, to prejudice the public mind, and discourage if pos- 
sible, the friends of the undertaking. The object was denounced as 
chimerical, impracticable and useless. Anonymous writers were em- 
ployed to pronounce the survey inaccurate and deceptive, and the 
estimates unsafe and fallacious. The road, it was declared, could 
never be made,—and if made, could never be used. The southern 
counties were asserted to be mountainous, sterile, and worthless, af- 


that they ought to resort to the valley of the Mohawk, as their na- 
tural outlet. The whole enterprise, supported as it was, by great 
masses of the population of the state, was pronounced to be a mere 
scheme of stock jobbing, and stigmatized as an attempt to deceive 
the southern counties—defraud the public—and ruin the individuals 
who might embark. init. ae 

Among the anonymous writers who joined in the condemnation 
of the proposed railroad there was one man who was so unkind as 
to call attention to the letter which Judge Wright had written three 
years previously to the President of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal 
Company in defence of canal transportation. He condemned the 
engineer’s report as misleading and inaccurate, and quoted the entire 
letter.’ 


The controversy over the relative merits of canals and railroads 
received at an early date the official attention of the New York 
legislature. By a resolution adopted February 23, 1835, the As- 
sembly directed the Canal Commissioners of the State to submit “a 
statement showing the average relative cost per mile of canals and 
railroads, the average relative expense annually of repairs and 
superintendence, and the average relative charges per ton, or other 
given quantity for transportation. 44 

The Canal Commissioners immediately called to their aid three 
of the engineers employed on the canal system, “John B. Jervis, 
Holmes Hutchinson, and Frederick C. Mills, Esqs., civil engineers, 
of experience in the construction of canals and railroads.” These 
three men drew up a report, based upon their personal experience 
and upon printed information then available concerning the advan- 
tages claimed for railroads and canals. This report the Commis- 
sioners submitted to the Assembly, with some comments of their 
own. The Commissioners said in part: 


__ The subject submitted to the consideration of the Commisioners, 
is interesting in its character, and of some public importance. The 


*In a pamphlet of eleven pages entitled The New York and Erie Railroad, 
and signed “A Taxpayer.” 


41 


comparative cost of constructing railroads and canals, the compara- 
tive cost of transportation, and the comparative expense of superin- 
tendence and repairs, are subjects which have occupied a large share 
of public attention; and respecting which, many speculative opinions 
have been advanced. At one period, the public were assured with 
some degree of apparent confidence, that rail-roads would supersede 
canals; and it will no doubt, be recollected by many, that inquiries 
were made as to the possibility of converting the Erie Canal into a 
rail-road. 

Experience has gradually developed the relative utility of canals 
and rail-roads for the transportation of property. We think the 
period is not distant, if it has not already arrived, when the superior 
advantages of a canal over a rail-road, as a means of conveying 
property, will be indisputably demonstrated. 


The report of the three engineers amply justified this statement. 
The engineers showed that “canals, on the average, have thus Ee, 
cost less than railroads, both in their construction ‘and repairs.” 
They found the “relative cost of conveyance” to be. “a little over 
four and one-third to one, in favor of canals” and submitted nu- 
merous tables to prove their assertion. Their final word was as 
follows: 


Weare therefore led to the conclusion, that in regard to the cost 
of construction and maintenance, and also in reference to the ex- 
pense of conveyance at moderate velocities, canals_are_clearly the 
most advantageous means of communication. On the other hand, 
where high velocities are required, as for the conveyance of pas- 
sengers, and under some circumstances of competition, for light 
goods of great value, in proportion to their weight, the preference 
would be given to a rail-road. 

It may be observed in favor of rail-roads, that they admit of 
advantageous use in districts where canals, for want of water, would 
be impracticable. This advantage often occurs in mining districts, 
and sometimes for general trade, where it is necessary to cross di- 
viding ridges, at a level too high to obtain water for their summits. 

The facts and reasonings presented, we believe clearly show, 
that both canals and rail-roads are highly important means of in- 
ternal communication, that each has its peculiar advantages, and will 
predominate, according to the character of the route, and the trade 
for which it is intended to provide.* 


So the controversy went on, each side claiming a preponderance 
of the evidence. The official record published by legislative bodies 
contains all the arguments of importance, though scores of articles 
written in favor of the rival improvements appeared in newspapers 

*New York Assembly Document Number 296, 58th Session, 1835. 


42 


and periodicals.t The American Railroad Journal frequently pub- 
lished long communications both from the friends of canals and 
from the supporters of railroads. But as the Quaker engineer of 
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad stated, it was “public opinion and _ 
public interest”-which finally settled the question, and not the closely 
reasoned*statements of the opposing advocates. 


Opposition of Vested Interests 


While the advocates of canals and turnpikes appeared for a 
time to have an unbounded confidence in the superiority of these two 
agencies over the upstart railroad, there was no disposition on the 
part of canal and turnpike owners to welcome a competitive struggle 
with the new improvement. They soon gave evidence of fear of the 
outcome of such a struggle by opposing vigorously the granting of 
railroad charters by state legislatures, 

“In England the opposition to the construction of railroads was 
stronger even than in the United States, because the vested interests 
which feared railroad competition were much more powerful. One 
of the heaviest items of expense of the early English railroads was 
the cost of getting bills for charters through Parliament. Money 
was spent freely to employ the most skillful lawyers to defend 
various projects before Parliamentary committees. The ‘Parlia- 
mentary and law expenditures” of the Liverpool and Manchester 
Railroad amounted to nearly thirty thousand pounds. Most of this 
sum was spent to overcome the enemies of the enterprise. One reason 
for the comparatively high capitalization of British railroads was the 
large expense of obtaining charters. One English writer thus de- 
scribed the € early difficulties of the railroad companies: 





The obstructionist tactics that had previously been directed 
against stage coaches and canals were now levelled at the innovation 
which was largely to supersede both. Many towns petitioned /| 
against having the railways brought near them, and demanded 
that railways and canals alike should be kept several miles from 
their borders. The-vested.interests of stage-coach proprietors and 
carriers offered strenuous opposition to the’new system...The medi- 
cal faculty were pressed into the service of the opposition, with dire- 
ful forebodings of the physical evils that would follow from_travel- 
ling at the rate’ of from thirty to forty miles an hour. Country 


*A good example of articles dealing with the comparative value of canals 
and railroads appeared serially in Hazard’s Register of Pennsylvama, Vol. VII, 
pp. 190, 194, 218 (1831). The article was reprinted from the Albany Evening 
Journal. 


43 


squires set up a howl as to the devastation that railways would work 
on their fox-covers. Territorial magnates joined in the crusade, 
on the ground that sparks from the locomotives would fire their 
plantations and_destroy the amenities of their demesnes. Canal 
proprietors urged that they had already provided all the facilities 
necessary for heavy traffic, and that it would be grossly unjust to 
allow a rival interest to step in and deprive them of the fruits of 
their efforts and expenditure. In some cases railway companies 
were forbidden to use any “locomotive or movable engine” without 
the consent of the owners and occupiers of the lands through which 
their line passed. Railway engineers and surveyors were not per- 
mitted to carry out their surveys without resorting to either force or 
strategy. Large sums of money were extorted for the purpose of 
buying off opposition.* 


The turnpike companies, stage lines, wagoners and innkeepers, 
were the first to feel the full effect of railroad competition in the 
United States. They made a determined, but for the most part, an 
ineffectual. ‘resistance. Col. A. K. McClure described the struggle 
in Pennsylvania: 


It is difficult for our people in this progressive age to understand 
the desperate resistance made by the people generally throughout the 
state to the introduction of railroads. When Pennsylvania at an early 
age had given liberal assistance to the construction of turnpikes, 
making continuous lines from Baltimore and Philadelphia to Pitts- 
burgh, it was accepted that our commonwealth was in the very front 
of progress, and our turnpikes developed _an_ immense industry in 
what.was known as Conestoga “wagons. Hundreds of six-horse 
teams, with immensé Covered wagons, were constantly on the high- 
ways, as they transported commerce and trade between the East and 
the West, and they created what formed a very powerful political 
factor in opposing the introduction of railways in the “wagon tav- 
oh g 4 

_.. Every. few miles along our through turnpikes-was found a 
wagon tavern. There was one or more in every village, and well- 
to-do farmers whose homes were on the turnpikes ran the wagon 
taverns as a side industry. All of them had capacious yards about 
the barn to accommodate teams during the night. Excepting in ex- 
tremely inclement weather the horses always stood out attached to 
the wagons. Hay and oats were furnished for the horses at very 
moderate prices, and the driver could obtain a “‘snack” or cold lunch 
in the evening, a bed, a hot breakfast and an evening and morning 
drink of whisky for twenty-five cents. 

The proprietors of the wagon taverns were generally men of 
influence in the community and when the proposition to construct 


J. S. Jeans, Railway Problems, pp. 6-7. 
44 


railways was seriously urged, the wagon drivers and wagon tavern 
keepers made a most aggressive battle. 

DA Mass meetings were held along the lines of the turnpikes to 
protest against the introduction of..railways,.which.were.declared 
to be of doubtful utility and which could be successful only by the de- 
struetion Of one of the most important industrial interests of the 
state, that had immense sums of money invested and which would 
certainly be destroyed. Political orators, always ready to cater to 
popular prejudice, delivered most fervent harangues against the pro- 
posed injustice of bringing ruin to the great industrial “interests,” 
which centered in wagon transportation. In some.instances. senators 
and: representatives were elected solely-on that issue. 

Fortunately the progress of the railroad was so gradual that, 
there was no _ violent.destruction-of-the..wagon.transpoertation inter- 
ests and the grand old Conestoga wagon, with its teams of six mag- 
nificent horses, usually elegantly caparisoned, gradually perished 
in Pennsylvania.’ 


In 1831 a petition was presented to the New York legislature, 
signed by several residents of the towns of Brooklyn and Jamaica, 
Long Island, requesting a charter for a railroad “from the village 
of Brooklyn in the county of Kings, to Jamaica in the county of 
Queens, a distance of about twelve miles.” At the same time the 
legislature received a remonstrance from other citizens of these two 
towns, asking that the petition for the charter be denied. The 
owners of the turnpike between Brooklyn and Jamaica likewise pro- 
tested against the granting of the charter. The committee of the 
Senate, to which the petition and the remonstrance were referred, 
recommended that no charter _be.granted, saying in its report :— 

To the prayer of this petition, objections are stated in the re- 
monstrance, showing that from local circumstances connected with 
the enterprise, the large amount of damages which would be unavoid- 
able, and the great extent of investments required, when compared 
with the limited business of this section of the country, and the in- 
convenience and injuries which would be imposed upon the inhabi- 
tants, renders the measure not only injurious to the country through 
which it must pass, but must produce results unfortunate to the in- 
terests of the stockholders. 


The number and standing of the petitioners certainly entitle 
them to the most respectful consideration, but at the same time, the 
names on the remonstrance are still more numerous, and not less re- 
spectable. 

Your committee, in considering this subject, have endeavored 
to ascertain the possible practical utility of the proposed rail-road 


*McClure, Old Time Notes of Pennsylvania, Vol. 1, pp, 123-124. 
45 


A 


with an eye to the results upon the feelings and interests of that sec- 
tion of the country through which it is to pass; and have been led to 
the conclusion, that the act of incorporation prayed for, would not 
be favorable to the interests or feelings of the inhabitants more im- 
mediately concerned in the location of the rail-road. There is now 
a turnpike communication from Brooklyn to Jamaica, inferior per- 
haps to none in the State in point of ease and convenience for public 
accommodation. The rights and interests of this company would be 
seriously involved in the construction of a rail-road connecting the 
same villages; and as no intermediate stations are designated in the 
petition, the committee has inferred that the route of the contem- 
plated railway would be nearly parallel and contiguous to the present 
turnpike, and destructive to the interests of that company, who also 
remonstrate in corporate capacity. 

From a careful consideration of the subject committed to your 
committee, they have been unable to perceive sufficient reasons to 
justify them in a report favorable to the prayer of the petitioners, 
and therefore recommend the adoption of the following resolution: 

Resolved, that the prayer of the petitioners ought not to be 
granted. 


The promoters of the railroad, following the denial of their 
first petition, made arrangements to purchase the turnpike, and again 
asked the legislature for a charter authorizing the construction of the 
railroad. The charter was granted in 1832, the twenty-seventh sec- 
tion of the act of incorporation containing the following provisions: 


The rail-road company hereby created shall, on the fifteenth day 
of May next, or as soon thereafter as the necessary arrangements 
for that purpose can be made, purchase the stock of the Brooklyn, 
Jamaica and Flatbush turnpike company, at the rate of twenty-six 
dollars per share in cash, or shall pay them for the said stock at the 
rate of twenty-three dollars a share in railroad stock of the said com- 
pany at par, at the option of each stockholder.’ 


The steam railroad soon demonstrated its superiority over the 
turnpike as a carrier of freight and passenger traffic, and the owners 
of turnpikes found it impossible to prevent the incorporation of new 
railroad lines. In some cases they saved themselves from serious 
loss by acquiring stock in the new railroad companies, or by inducing 
the legislature to insert in the acts of incorporation of railroads pro- 
“visions for compensation for whatever damage they might sustain 
because of railroad construction. In 1835 the Seneca Turnpike 
_ Company presented a memorial to the New York legislature seeking 


‘New York State Senate Document Number 63, 54th Session, 1831. 
*Laws of New York, 1832, Chapter 256. 


46 


“Telief from prospective ruin... This company had been chartered 
in 1800, and had built a turnpike from Utica to Canandaigua, with 
branches from Chittenango through Salina to the east shore of Cay- 
uga Lake. The cost of constructing the road had been $162,000, and 
because of the heavy expense of upkeep during the early years, when 
traffic had been comparatively light, the profits of the company had 
been very small. The country along the road had been settled rap- 
idly after the highway was built, however, and for a time the com- 
pany was fairly prosperous. Then the Erie canal had been con- 
structed, and it at once swept from the turnpike “all the teaming, 
and almost all the public travel except that passing in stage coaches.” 
The memorialists stated: 


That they have recently been informed, through the medium of 
public journals and otherwise, that applications have been made and 
are now pending before your honorable body, for the enactment of 
laws authorizing the construction of rail-roads, to extend, one from 
the city of Utica, in the county of Oneida, to the village of Syracuse, 
‘in the county of Onondaga, and one from the village of Auburn in 
Cayuga county, through Geneva and Canandaigua, to the city of 
Rochester, in Monroe county; and that, although your memorialists 
do not intend or desire to assume an adversary attitude towards the 
said applications, still, as guardians of the rights and_interests of 
the Seneca.road.company, they deem it their duty to call the atten- 
tion of your honorable body to the natural, and, as your memorialists 
fully believe, certain and inevitable effect of the construction of the 
roads contemplated in such applications, upon those rights and in- 
terests. : 

And your memorialists further represent, that in their view, 
all that section of the said road lying between Utica and Syracuse, 
and also that between Auburn and Cayuga. lake, will be.rendered . 
entirely unproductive and valueless to the company, by the construc- 
tion of the contemplated rail-roads_. . . as, owing to the greater 
expedition of rail-road” conveyance, all the public travel_in~ stage 
coaches and otherwise, and.all the teaming now using these sections 
and parts of the said road will be at once diverted, and nothing will 
be left upon the-road_but.the occasionallight neighborhood travel; 
the income from which will not even pay the expense of keeping up 
gates, much less that of necessary and unavoidable repairs. And 
thus the whole capital of the said company, already greatly depre- 
ciated by the injurious operation upon it of the several causes herein- 
before adverted to, particularly the construction of the grand canal, 
will, your memoralists believe, be sacrificed, sunk, and irretrievably 
lost to its holders, unless the rights and interests of the company 
shall receive protection at your hands. 

Your memorialists . . . respectfully submit . . . that 


47 


’ should acts be passed in pursuance of the applications aforesaid. 
they should each contain a provision, or provisions, requiring the 
corporations or associations to be created thereby, to arrange with 
the said company in such manner as shall ensure justice to all par- 
ties, the amount of damages which the company shall be adjudged 
to sustain, treensequence of the construction of such rail-roads, and 
requiring also that such arrangement both as to the sums to be paid, 
and likewise the mode and time of payment shall be completed, 
before the said corporations or associations shall be allowed to pro- 
ceed in their operations." 


That this memorial was not without effect is shown in the 
seventh section of the act of incorporation of the Syracuse & Utica 
Railroad Company, providing that the railroad company should pay 
to the owners of the Seneca road company “the amount of damages 
which said road company may sustain by the construction of the 
railroad hereby authorized.” ? 

When the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad was opened in 1831 
there was an immediate decline in the traffic passing over the Albany 
and Schenectady turnpike. The directors of the turnpike company, 
having foreseen the probable effect of the construction of the rail- 
road, had, in 1830, secured the enactment of a law authorizing them 
to extend their road “in the county of Albany; and to convert about 
eighteen feet of their turnpike in the same county of Albany, into a 
railroad or way.” * The Albany terminus of the Mohawk and Hud- 
son Railroad was on the south side of the city. The turnpike com- 
pany announced.a plan of converting its highway into a.railroad, 
with its eastern terminus. near the center of Albany. 

The directors of the Mohawk and Hudson Company claimed the 
exclusive right, under their charter of 1826, to operate a railroad 
between Albany and Schenectady, and they at once entered a vigorous 
protest against the proposed action of the rival carrier. A com- 
promise was finally reached under the terms of which the Mohawk 
and Hudson Company was to build a branch line into the main busi- 
ness district of the city of Albany. It was to increase its capitaliza- 


‘New York Assembly Document, No. 148, 58th Session, 1835. 

"Laws of New York, 1836, Chapter 292. 

*Ibid., 1830, Chapter 319. 

* The claim of the Mohawk and Hudson Company to the exclusive right to 
operate a railroad between Albany and Schenectady rested upon the eighteenth 
section of the act of incorporation (Laws of New York, 1826, Chapter 253): 
“That nothing in this act contained shall be so taken or construed as to 
prevent the present or any future legislature from authorizing the construction 
of a railroad or roads from any city or village other than from the city of 
Albany, to any other place or places in this State.” 


48 


i 


tion by $100,000, and the stockholders of the turnpike company were 
to have the privilege of purchasing the new railroad shares at par, 
though at the time the shares of the railroad corporation were sell- 
ing at a premium of about thirty percent. The compromise agree- 
ment of the two companies was submitted to the legislature, and a 
law was enacted in 1832 authorizing the execution of the plan. The 
Mohawk and Hudson Company was permitted to construct a branch 
“from the line of their present railroad, at or near its intersection 
with the great western turnpike, to Capitol square in the city of 
Albany, and from thence, or from some point between the said place 
of intersection and Capitol square, to the Albany basin.” The in- 
crease of capitalization was authorized, and the stockholders of the 
Albany & Schenectady turnpike company were granted the right to 
purchase the new shares at par.? 


The early railroad companies of Massachusetts and other New 
England states met with strong opposition on the part of turnpike 
companies and stage lines. The historian of the Eastern Railroad 
describes as follows the first attempt to procure a charter for a rail- 
road between Boston and Salem: | 


As early as 1832 there was a project for a railroad between 
Boston and eastern points, for that year Thomas H. Perkins, Philip 
Chase, George Blake, David Henshaw, William H. Sumner, and 
others petitioned the Legislature to charter a railroad from Boston 
to Salem. There were two plans, one route to end at Winnisimmet 
(Chelsea), and the other at Noddles Island, (East Boston), and 
then to ferry across the harbor to the city proper, but owing to the 

-strong opposition from the Salem-Turnptke~and-~ Chelsea Bridge 
Corporations-and from the ship-owning interests in Chelsea, which 
were afraid that navigation for vessels would be interfered with, the 
charter was refused:—There were also strong remonstrances from 
Lynn, as the several_mills situated on the Saugus river above the 
Salem turnpike were afraid that the proposed drawbridge would pre- 
vent coasting vessels from loading and discharging cargoes at their 
wharves. The whaling.industry-of Lynn, then employing three ves- 
sels, were afraid their business would be utterly ruined for the same 
reason. At that time thirty stages ran daily between Boston and 
Salem, and the Senate committee thought that would suffice. Doubts 
were expressed whether the travel would be as great as the projec- 
tors of the railroad estimated, and one member of the Senate com- 


*Laws of New York, 1832, Chapter 79. The compromise between the rival 
companies was discussed in a report of a committee of the Assembly, to which 


the proposal for the enlargement of the powers of the railroad company was 
referred. New York Assembly Document Number 36, 55th Session, 1832. 


49 


mittee thought “that persons owning fine horses and carriages would 
certainly not give them up to ride in dirty steam cars.” * 


Three years later another group of men organized a company 
to build a railroad from Boston to Newburyport, by way of Salem. 
Subscriptions to the stock of the organization were invited, and a 
committee appointed to obtain a charter from the legislature. This 
committee, of which George Peabody was chairman, presented a pe- 
tition to the legislature, in September, 1835, signed by fifteen hun- 
dred citizens. The petition was not acted on at once, but referred 
to the next session of the legislature. Mr. Peabody’s réport to the 
stock subscribers, made after the charter was finally procured, con- 
tained the following statement :— 


This delay afforded the adversaries of our project ample time 
to organize and combine their hostility, and accordingly, when the 
subject was called up in the January session, a most formidable op- 
position was presented, and seemed for a while to threaten a speedy 
annihilation of our hopes for a charter. After a hearing of seven- 
teen or eighteen days, before the committee of the Legislature, dur- 
ing which time every possible objection was urged which the in- 
genuity of ten or twelve professional gentlemen with their friends 
could devise, a bill was reported in our favor.’ 


It is easy to understand the opposition of the turnpike, stage 
line and teaming interests. The railroad was destroying their busi- 
ness, and they were suffering, just as skilled laborers suffer when 
they are displaced by machines. An old wagoner wrote to the his- 
torian of the Cumberland Road: 


While the writer was wagoning on the old Pike, the canal was 
made from Cumberland to Harper’s Ferry. The Pike boys were 
bitterly opposed to the railroads and so were the tavern keepers. 
The writer heard an old tavern keeper say “he wished the railroads 
would sink to the lower regions.” ® 


But it was useless for the opponents of the railroad to struggle. 
The “good old ways” were passing. 


When at last, the Conestoga horse yielded up the palm to the 
Iron Horse, and it became manifest that the glory of the old road 
was departing, the old wagoners, many of whom had spent their best 
days on the road, sang in chorus the following lament :— 

‘Francis B. C. Bradlee, The Eastern Railroad, pp. 3-4. 
* Quoted in Bradlee, The Eastern Railroad, p. 10. 


* A letter from John Deets, in Thomas B. Searight, The Old Pike, A History 
of the National Road, p. 121. 


50 


‘Now all ye jolly wagoners, who have got good wives, 
Go home to your farms and there spend your lives, 
When your corn is all rubbed, and your small grain is good, 
You'll have nothing to do but curse the railroad.” ? 


The opposition of canal interests to the introduction and devel- 
opment of steam railroad transportation..was-more vigorous than 
the opposition-of-turnpike interests. A canal usually represented a 
much larger investment than a turnpike, and the incentive to keep 
competitors out of the field was therefore stronger. Then too, canal 
interests were able to secure greater public support than turnpike 
owners. The leading artificial waterways were state enterprises, 
and most of them were constructed with borrowed money. Should 
these waterways be unable, because of railroad competition,.to.earn | 
enough to pay for their cost, the debts incurred for their construction 
would have to be met°with taxes. The public at large had there- 
fore a distinct pecuniary interest in maintaining the business of the 
canals. Another factor which favored the canal interests was that 
the question of the relative efficiency.of.canals.and.railroad.as.car- 
riers of general freight traffic was not settled so easily as the ques~ 
tion of the relative advantages of railroads and turnpikes for the 
transportation of passengers. The canal afforded a much cheaper 
means of transportation than the turnpike, and in some respects it 
was a cheaper agency than the railroad, and just as efficient. Oc- 
casionally the railroads were handicapped in the struggle for su- 
premacy because state governments had means of meeting undesired 
competition which would not have been available to private corpora- 
tions. 

The opposition of canal interests to railroads was especially 
strong in the Eastern States. In the West and South railroad con- 
struction was not started on an extensive scale until after the rail- 
road had been thoroughly tested and proven in the East. Moreover 
in the West and South few of the early railroads were built parallel 
to existing waterways, either canals or rivers. In New England and 
in the Middle Atlantic States, on-the.other.hand, the important early 
railroads were built virtually alongside the canals, and a keen rivalry 
existed from the beginning. The canal interests did not relish the 
prospect of competition. They tried to prevent the incorporation 
of railroads, and failing in this, they endeavored by adverse legisla- 
tion, to neutralize whatever.natural advantage the railroad possessed. 


*Searight, The Old Pike, p. 145. 
51 


Mention has been made of the rivalry between the Chesapeake 
and Ohio Canal Company and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Com- 
pany. In New Jersey the Camden and Amboy Railroad Company 
and the Delaware and Raritan Canal Company started out as rivals, 
but composed their differences by consolidating into a single corpora- 
tion. In New England the canal companies strenuously opposed the 
construction of railroads. The Middlesex Canal Company protested 
against the incorporation of the Boston and Lowell Railroad Com- 
pany in 1830,* and similar protests were made by canal companies 
against other railroads. 

It was in New York, however, where the most spectacular 
struggle between canal and railroad took place. The Erie Canal was 
the most successful of all the early artificial waterways. It~gave 
New York the commercial leadership of the nation; it was also a 
great financial success, the tolls collected being sufficient to meet 
operating expenses and reimburse the treasury for the original cost 
of construction. When attempts were made to extend a line of 
short railways from Albany to Buffalo, following the route of the 
canal, the legislature was torn by conflicting sentiments, a desire to 
preserve the revenues of the state waterway and a wish to let the 
state have steam railroads, which, for some purposes at least, were 
obviously superior to canals. Governor E. T. Throop, in his mes- 
sage to the legislature, January 3, 1832, recommended that railroad 
charters be granted with discretion, saying: 

In lending a favorable ear to these projected improvements 
upon routes contiguous to, and intersecting our canals, or pointing 
to the sources of their trade, the Legislature should be extremely 
careful to do nothing which may interfere with the canal revenues, 
or retard the payment of the debt. It is supposed that companies 
may be formed to take charters for rail-roads upon the most impor- 
tant routes, with the condition-of-paying—into.the public treasury 
such rates of toll; that no loss.of revenue will result from their in- 
terference with the. business of our. canals.” 

In chartering the second link of the central line of railroad in 
New York, the legislature went farther even than the governor had 
suggested. The Utica and Schenectady Railroad Company was au- 
thorized to. “transport, take and.carry passengers and their ordinary 
baggage,” but was forbidden to transport freight. The tenth sec- 
tion of the act of incorporation stated: ‘No property of any de 
scription, except the ordinary baggage of passengers, shall be rans) 


*Boston Daily Advertiser, February 15, 1830. 
*New York Assembly Document Number 2, 55th Session, 1832. 


52 


ported._or carried on the said road.” * This was the only New York 
railroad that was forbidden to carry freight. 

The charter of the Auburn and Syracuse road, granted in 1834, 
required the railroad company— 


to pay to the commissioners of the canal fund, the same tolls on 
all goods and other property transported, taken and carried on the 
said road or ways, except the ordinary baggage of passengers, as 
may at the time of such transportation on the said rail-road or ways, 
be required to be paid to the state on the same kind and description 
of goods and other property transported, carried, and conveyed on 
the Erie Canal.? 


The charter of the Auburn and Rochester Railroad Company, 
granted in 1836, contained the somewhat ambiguous provision, that 


the corporation hereby created shall not take and transport mer- 
chandise or property in such manner as to lessen the income of the 
Erie Canal during the time when the canal is navigable.’ 


The Syracuse and Utica Railroad Company, also chartered in 
1836, was required during the season of canal navigation, to pay to 


the commissioners of the canal fund such tolls on all goods and other 
property transported . . . except the ordinary baggage of pas- 
sengers, as the canal board shall deem proper, but not exceeding the 
rates of toll charged upon like property upon the said canal.* 


The Attica and Buffalo Railroad Company and the two roads 
which composed the eastern part of the central line—the Mohawk 
and Hudson and the Schenectady and Troy—were not required to 
pay tolls under the terms of their charters. 

In 1844 the charter of the Utica and Schenectady Company was 
amended, to permit the road to carry freight “during the suspension 
of canal navigation in each year only,” but it was stipulated that the 
company should pay into the canal fund “the same tolls per mile on 
all goods, chattels and other property transported, as would have 
been paid on them had they been transported on the Erie Canal.” 
The same act required the Syracuse and Utica, the Auburn and 
Syracuse, the Auburn and Rochester, the Tonawanda, and the Attica 
and Buffalo Railroads, to pay the same tolls as were required of the 
Utica and Schenectady, but the canal board was directed to make 
regulations concerning the roads west of Utica— 


/ 


*Laws of New York, 1833, Chapter 294. 
*Tbid., 1834, Chapter 228. 
*Tbid., 1836, Chapter 349. 
“‘Ibid., 1836, Chapter 292. 


53 


so as to continue to said roads the privilege of transporting local 
freight without the payment of toll, wherever they now enjoy that 
privilege, and to enforce and ensure the collection and payment of 
tolls on all such freight as shall be carried on the said roads by reason 
of the privilege in this act granted to the Utica and Schenectady rail- 
road.* 3 

The managers of the railroads west of Utica soon became in- 
volved in a controversy with the members of the canal board as to 
the meaning of the terms of this law. There was a difference of 
opinion as to what constituted local freight, and there was also some 
difficulty in ascertaining what freight carried on the rocds west of 
Utica was carried “by reason of the privilege” granted to the Utica 
and Schenectady line. 

In 1847 the legislature clarified matters somewhat by enacting 
another measure dealing with the question of tolls. In this law all 
restrictions upon the right of the Utica and Schenectady road to 
carry freight were removed, and the practice of charging tolls on 
railroad freight.was.extended.to-all the roads which made up the 
“central line” from Albany to Buffalo, including even the Albany 
and Schenectady (formerly the Mohawk and Hudson) and the 
Schenectady and Troy roads, which previously had escaped the re- 
quirement of paying tolls to the state. The only exception made 
was that the roads west of Utica were confirmed in their right to 
carry local freight without the payment of tolls in all cases where 
such right had formerly existed.? 

In_1848 the principle of imposing canal tolls upon railroads was 
still further extended, the general railroad law of that year providing 
that any railroad company formed under the law,.the line of which 
should run parallel or nearly parallel to a canal owned by the state, 
should be required to pay tolls upon all property carried except the 
baggage of passengers.* The general railroad law of 1850 continued 
this policy.* Another act passed in 1850, however, provided that 
“neat cattle, horses, sheep and fresh meats, may hereafter be trans- 
ported upon any railroad. in this state, without being liable to the 
payment of canal tolls.’ > 

In 1851 the legislature abandoned its policy of discriminating 
against the railroads, and enacted a law abolishing all canal tolls 

‘Laws of New York, 1844, Chapter 335. 
*Ibid., 1847, Chapter 270. 
*Ibid., 1848, Chapter 140. 


“‘Tbid., 1850, Chapter 140. 
*Tbid., 1850, Chapter 268. 


54 


which railroad corporations had previously been compelled to pay.’ 
The railroad companies had for several years been strenuously ob- 
jecting to the payment of these charges. It was apparent that the 
central line of railroads—about to be consolidated into a single sys- 
tem—woud be at a serious disadvantage if the collection of tolls 
were continued on that route and no tolls imposed upon the New 
York and Erie Railroad, which in 1851 was opened between Pier- 
mont and Dunkirk. There was an animated discussion of the en- 
tire question of canal tolls in the legislature. For several years 
canal receipts had been large, and the fear of successful railroad 
competition had been in a measure dissipated. As a result no great 
difficulty was encountered in securing the enactment of the law for 
the abolition of the obnoxious tolls. 

After the passage of the act exempting railroads from the 
payment of canal tolls there was a sharp decline in canal traffic, and 


“a marked decrease in the canal revenues. The decline in traffic was 


— 


due in part to the general economic conditions of the country, but 
it was chiefly due to the fact that the trunk line railroads, by lower- 
ing their freight rates, were able to attract some of the freight that 
had previously passed. through-the canal. The reduction in railroad 
rates was caused partly by the desire of the railroad managers to 

“capture” the canal traffic, but the chief cause was the intense com- 
petition among the railroads themselves. The State Engineer and 
Surveyor of New York, in his Annual Report on Railroad Statistics 
of 1855, criticised the excessive reduction of railroad rates. He 
said: 


The charges for transportation have been reduced to the pres- 
ent low rates from a mistaken opinion that it is necessary for the 
public to be shown large receipts, to accomplish which it was neces- 
sary to enter into competition with rival roads and water lines. 

The alleged necessity of showing large receipts still exists ; and 
the attempt to maintain the business diverted from rival roads being 
abandoned, a competition with water lines is commenced, for the 
transportation of the heavy and cheap articles of freight, which can 
only be maintained by rates nearly or quite as low as those charged 
upon lakes, rivers and canals, and too low . . . to give a fair remu- 
neration to the railroads. . . 

Sufficient information has been elicited from the railroads in 
this and other States from the actions of the conventions,? and from 


‘Laws of New York, 1851, Chapter 497. 
?Railroad conventions had been held for the purpose of bringing excessive 
railroad competition to an end. 


aN 


other sources of information, to warrant the belief that a consider- 
able portion of freighting business now done by your railroads yields 
no profits at the present rates... . 


His conclusion that the railroads were carrying a portion of their 
traffic at a loss was based in part upon the annual report of his pre- 
decessor in office, published in 1854, This report had given a some- 
what elaborate history of the development of the railroads and canals 
of New York, and had presented figures purporting to show that 
the cost of transportation by rail was more than twice the cost of 
transportation by canal.? 

For several years the State of New York had been engaged in 
enlarging the Erie Canal. The cost of the improvement had been 
heavy, and it was now apparent that to meet this expense and the 
expenses of operating the canal system, the State would be obliged 
either to take steps to increase the canal revenues or to resort to an 
increase in the rates of taxation. The Auditor of the Canal De- 
partment, in his annual report of 1855, The Tolls, Trade and Ton- 
nage of the Canals of New York, called attention to the declining 
revenues of the canal system, asserting that “the diversion of ton- 
nage by the railroads from the canals is of great and serious charac- 
ter.” Referring to the railroad managers who had reduced their 
rates for the purpose of diverting tonnage from the State waterways, 
he said: 


Such railroad operators are, . . . in violation of the trust 
and confidence reposed in them, by the stockholders upon the one 
hand, and the State which gave ‘them existence as a corporation on 
the other, working a double injury. And the State, by a proper, ju- 
dicious, and equitable imposition of canal tolls, will perform a double 
duty; protect their own revenues from loss and injury by the reck- 
lessness of individuals, and aid the injured stockholders by prevent- 
ing the possibility of competition, and thus destroying the temptation 
for such departures from a legitimate and profitable to a ruinous and 
losing business.° 


The suggestion that the State return to the policy of imposing 
tolls upon those railroads which competed with the canals, met with 


favor in the eyes of Governor Myron H. Clark. In a special mes- 
sage to the legislature, March 20, 1855, he said: 


There is no interest of the State of greater importance, or 
*New York Senate Document Number 35, 78th Session, 1855. 
*"New York Senate Document Number 60, 77th Session, 1854. 
*"New York Assembly Document Number 95, 78th Session, 1855. 


56 


which has a more extended influence upon its growth and prosperity 
than its works of internal improvement. They are enduring and 
valuable monuments of the wisdom and foresight of those who pro- 
jected them and have, to an incalculable degree, developed the re- 
sources, increased the wealth, and contributed to the general pros- 
perity of the commonwealth. It is the duty of the legislature, there- 
fore, to guard jealously their iitérésts and to”secure’to them that 
degrééof protection which their importarice-and-the vested right of 
the State alike demand 

A comparison of the business of the State canals and several 
of the principal railroads for the years 1853 and 1854. . . shows 
conclusively that the transit of freight is to a very great extent, and 
much to the injury of the State, diverted from the State canals to 
railroad lines. 

This diversion existing and rendering taxation necessary, justice 
and equity would single out the institutions creating and reaping the 
benefits of diversion as those which should be required to meet the 
burdens. 

. The true.and only policy, in my opinion, is the imposition of 
_canaL.tolls upon: the.railroad tonnage of all the railroads’ diverting 


“. business from the canals... .? 


A majority of the committee on ways and means of the assem- 
bly made a report recommending the reimposition of tolls upon the 
railroads competing with the canals. It was not possible, however, 
to secure the enactment of a bill embodying the recommendations of 
the majority of the committee. During the following five years sev- 
eral attempts were made to bring about a return to the policy of im- 
posing canal tolls upon railroads, but all such attempts resulted in 
failure. The tolls were never..restored,..and the canal debts were 
met with taxes. 


In Pennsylvania also, there was a conflict between state authori- 
ties and railroads because of railway competition with the Penn- 
sylvania Public Works. The controversy was of comparatively 
short duration, however, because the legislature adopted the policy 
of selling the State canals torfailroad corporations. The canal com- 
missioners of Pennsylvania, like those of New York, believed that 
canals were superior to railroads as carriers of freight. They were 
inclined to discourage the construction of railroads, and when rail- 
roads were built, they declined to cooperate with railroad managers 
for the improvement of the transportation service. 

Pennsylvania also followed the policy of imposing tolls upon 


*New York Assembly Document Number 97, 78th Session, 1855. 
*New York Assembly Document Number 107, 78th Session, 1855. 


57 


the freight traffic of railroads which competed with State canals. 
The act providing for the incorporation of the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road Company placed a tax of five mills per mile upon each ton of 
freight “carried or conveyed over said railroad more than twenty 
miles, between the tenth day of March and the first day of Sep- 
tember of each year.”’* In 1848 this tax was commuted to a tax of 
three mills per ton per mile upon all freight carried on the railroad 
throughout the year. ? 


In 1852, when the Pennsylvania Railroad Company established 
a through service between Lancaster and Pittsburgh, it endeavored 
to have its passenger cars hauled on the tracks of the State railroad 
between Lancaster and Philadelphia, just as the cars of other com- 
panies and of individuals were hauled. The canal commissioners 
excluded the railroad company’s cars from the State railroad, and 
proceeded to grant a virtual monopoly of the passenger service 
between Philadelphia and Columbia to a transportation firm in 
Philadelphia. The railroad company protested against this action 
and appealed to the courts for relief. The courts upheld the canal 
commisioners, on the grounds that the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- 
pany’s charter did not expressly give the company the right to 
operate its cars on the State Railroad.* In 1853 the legislature came 
to the aid of the railroad company, passing an act giving it the right 
to have its cars passed over the State works, thereby putting an end 
to the canal commissioners’ policy of discrimination.* 

In 1857 the legislature authorized the sale of the Main Line 
of Pennsylvania Public Works. The law authorizing the sale pro- 
vided that if the Pennsylvania Railroad Company should purchase 
the State works, the company could, in return for $1,500,000, 
payable in five per cent. bonds, obtain exemption from the tonnage 
taxes previously imposed and from all other taxes to the State 
except for school, city, county or borough purposes.® This 
particular provision of the law was declared to be unconstitutional 
by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court,® and technically the three mill 


‘Laws of Pennsylvania, 1846, Number 262. 
*Ibid., 1848, Number 224. 


*Pennsylvania State Reports, XXI, p. 9. For an account of the controversy: 
between the canal commissioners and the railroad company see the annual re- 


ports of the canal commissioners and of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company 
for the years 1852 and 1853. 


*Laws of Pennsylvania, 1853, Number 110. 
*Ibid., 1857, Number 579. 
*Pennsylvania State Reports, XXX, p. 9. 


58 


on 


tonnage tax was restored, remaining in effect until 1861, when it 
was unconditionally repealed:* 


Narrow Conception of the Use of the Railroad 


One of the most persistent obstacles to the rapid development 
of efficient railroad transportation in the United States was the 
limited_conception,..both.on.the part of the public and on the part 
of railroad executives, of the use of the railroad. The first rail- 
ways were built to serve small localities, to connect one town with 
another town, to join lines of water communication in places where 
the construction of artificial waterways was not feasible. It took 
a generation for the idea of a railroad serving a large portion of 
the country firmly to take root, and it took almost two generations 
to develop the idea of great national railroad systems. 

The creation of such systems as the New York Central and the 
Pennsylvania showed how railroad service could be improved by 
the consolidation of short connecting lines. The early railroad 
systems seldom extended, however, beyond state boundaries. 
Various railroad companies displayed an interest in building up state 


railroad systems, but there was a reluctance to embark in large 
~ schemes of consolidation. The eastern trunk lines were interested 


in having good feeders on the west, and even aided in financing 
the construction of such feeders, but there was for a time no 
disposition to consolidate with these western lines. The Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad Company, for example, had a substantial invest- 
ment in the Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad, which in 1856 became 
a part of the Pittsburgh, Ft. Wayne and Chicago Railroad, but the 
Pennsylvania directors were glad, during the Civil War, to dispose 
of their holdings of the stock of this important connection. In a 
similar way the Baltimore and Ohio sold its stock in the Northern 
Central between Baltimore and Sunbury. This stock the Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad bought up at bargain prices, primarily because it 
gave a greater degree of control over traffic within the State of 
Pennsylvania. 

The most telling evidence of the shortsightedness of railroad 
managers and of the public was the multiplicity of gauges employed 
in the construction of the first railroads of the United States. There 
was little or no indication of a belief that a uniform gauge was 


*Laws of Pennsylvania, 1861, Number 100. 


59 


desirable, until circumstances virtually compelled the extension of 
railroad systems beyond state boundaries. 


There was a wide diversity in the gauges of the early rail- 
roads. Most of the lines in New England had the standard gauge 
(4 ft., 8%4 inches), although the Atlantic and St. Lawrence, which 
passed under the control of the Grand Trunk, had a gauge of 5 feet, 
6 inches, as did a few other lines in Maine. The New York Central 
Railroad had a gauge of 4 feet, 814 inches, but the Erie and the 
Delaware, Lackawanna and Western had a gauge of 6 feet. Most 
of the railroads in New Jersey, including the Camden and Amboy 
and the lines of the New Jersey Railroad and Transportation 
Company, were built with a gauge of 4 feet 10 inches, but the 
Central Railroad of New Jersey and the Camden and Atlantic 
were built with the standard gauge. The Central had a third raii 
to permit the passage of the six-foot cars and locomotives of the 
Delaware, Lackawanna and Western, which used the Central’s line 
to reach Elizabethport. The Pennsylvania Railroad was built with 
the standard gauge. In Ohio the prevailing gauge was 4 feet 10 
inches, but there were a few lines with standard gauge, while the 
Ohio and Mississippi had a gauge of 6 feet, the Eaton and Hamilton 
5 feet 101% inches, the Scioto and Hocking Valley and the Sandusky, 
Mansfield and Newark 5 feet 4 inches, and the Cleveland and Toledo 
4 feet 914 inches. In Indiana and [Illinois the standard gauge 
predominated. In Missouri the prevailing gauge was 5 feet 6 inches, 
though the Hannibal and St. Joseph had the standard gauge. In 
the Southern States east of the Mississippi River virtually all the 
railroads were built with a gauge of 5 feet, there being a greater 
degree of uniformity in these states than in any other part of the 
country. In the law incorporating the Union Pacific Railroad 
Company, Congress authorized the President of the United States to 
establish the gauge of the railroad. After Lincoln had issued a 
proclamation establishing a gauge of 5 feet, Congress passed a bill 
requiring the railroad to be constructed with the standard gauge 
of 4 feet 8% inches. 


Occasionally the gauge of railroads was changed to permit the 
operation of through trains. Sometimes there was opposition to a 
change of gauge. Cities in which there was a break of gauge had 
a certain amount of transhipment business, which was lost when 
gauges were made uniform. In the winter of 1853-54, the citizens 
of Erie, Pennsylvania, angered because the gauge of the Erie and 


60 


North East Railroad had been reduced from 6 feet to 4 feet 10 
inches, to correspond to the gauge of the railroad leading west from 
Erie, repeatedly tore up the tracks and burned the bridges of the 
railroad, interrupting rail communication between Erie and New 
York for several weeks, 

It was not until after the Civil War that the people of the 
United States began to realize the full benefits of the steam railroad. 
The rapid development of the agricultural resources of the interior 
of the United States, which came with the extensive use of farm 
machinery, brought about an enormous increase of railroad traffic. 
In 1869 the Union Pacific-Central Pacific line was completed 
between the Missouri River and the Pacific Coast. It was becom- 
ing evident that the steam railroad could serve as an efficient carrier 
of freight, whatever the character of the traffic and whatever the 
distance of the haul. Cheap steel and the air brake prepared the 
way for heavier and faster trains. There came a new conception 
of the possibilities of the railroad, and old methods of conducting 
the business were discarded. The keen competition among the 
eastern trunk lines for western business made it necessary for these 
lines to secure exclusive control of their leading western connections. 
During the five years following 1868 consolidation and new con- 
struction brought into existence a group of great national railways 
which were to exercise a dominating influence upon the transporta- 
tion business of the country. Uniformity of gauge became a 
necessity. The time had arrived for the development of railroad 
transportation on a scale undreamed of when the first railroad was 
constructed. All doubt as to the superiority of the railroad over 
previous methods of transportation vanished, the opposition to the 
railroad as a carrier of freight gradually died away, and the ob- 
stacles to railway expansion disappeared. 


61 


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